The Fifth Blight: Alistair
by Desdemona Sunrise
Summary: The happenings of Dragon Age: Origins as seen through Alistair's eyes. Before too long he's focusing more on Elissa Cousland's behind than on the ever-encroaching darkspawn horde. He maintains that is totally not his fault. Alistair/f!Cousland. Alternative title: "The Story of How I Learned to Lead Without Losing my Pants." Character study. Relationship centric.
1. Chapter 1

I just really needed to get this out there because it's been sitting on my hard drive for about 3 years. I know, I know, yet another Alistair/f!Cousland. I have a fair few chapters already written and will be polishing each of them up before posting. Feedback is welcomed! Particularly if you spot any errors or inconsistencies (been a while since I actually played through the game…).

 **Warning** : that rating is there for a reason. I will not be including future warnings for M content in specific chapters unless I consider it a trigger warning.

 **Disclaimer** : I _wish_. This 'disclaimer' applies to all future chapters.

* * *

Two things made me nervous: deception and women.

Typical sheltered male, perhaps? On the one hand, I was a bumbling fool around the opposite sex, quite rightly assuming that they weren't interested in me in the slightest but still trying to make some sort of positive impression, and on the other, I was paranoid about people lying to me or trying to manipulate me.

This meant that I second guessed a lot of things.

So I'd been… _apprehensive_ when Duncan told me to stay behind during his last recruiting mission before he joined the rest of us for our main stand at Ostagar. He told me I was to stay behind with the rest of the Wardens and carry on with the trek towards the stronghold. I'd been with him every other time, and I had a horrible suspicion that the reason I was being abandoned had something to do with my heritage, and that my mentor had basically lied to me to save my feelings (of rage).

I cornered him about it just as he was getting ready to leave, strapping on his greaves.

"Duncan, is there any real reason you've decided that you don't like me anymore?"

As always, he didn't look annoyed at my obvious suspicion or my joke.

"Despite our victories so far, Alistair, the next battles in Ostagar will be the most difficult and decisive. We will be facing the main horde itself. You must be there in my stead in case I don't return in time."

And as always, he managed to answer my question and leave me more confused (slightly chastised) and with more queries.

"Where are you going?" He'd already been to Orzammar, and managed to recruit six willing dwarves, but only half had passed the Joining and they were now practicing with the King's men, though why they needed pointers on how to fight darkspawn was beyond me. In any case, I couldn't imagine anywhere further away than that, nor anywhere else he hadn't yet looked for competent fighters.

"A short stop at Denerim, but then I will be going onto Highever."

Highever? What did he plan to find there? Surely those prissy nobles wouldn't want him taking away one of their knights or guards.

Duncan must have seen the bewildered scepticism on my face.

"I have been hearing about one Ser Gilmore for quite some time, and it is fortunate that I am on speaking terms with the teyrn's eldest, Fergus Cousland."

I shrugged and left the conversation there, despite how I wanted to know how he managed to be "on speaking terms" with the heir to the second most important name in Ferelden. I wished him luck and headed to the Quartermaster, intent on repairing a nick on my left bracer that kept catching my shield.

Before I knew it, the days were passing and nobody had any idea where Duncan was or when he would actually be back. The horde was growing and surfacing en masse now, and Duncan was still absent. It was with some relief that I spotted Cailan heading off towards the gates the day before we planned to fight, and I assumed that Duncan had sent ahead word that he would be returning today. Cailan loved the Grey Wardens; I couldn't imagine anyone else he would greet personally.

Trying to be subtle, I watched as the King returned to his tent looking unsettled. He was trying to be as jovial as ever, but there was a tightness around his eyes and in his walk that I couldn't ignore. I began to worry.

I hovered near the entrance and shortly met Duncan and a massive mabari whose main purpose in life seemed to be to drool all over me and distract me while Duncan explained that there "had been trouble" at Highever. For the next minute, I uncharacteristically – I'm well aware of some of my flaws, thank you – managed to listen and stay silent.

"Trouble? You call the massacre of all the Couslands and everybody else at the castle _trouble_?"

The man massaged his forehead in consternation as I finally managed to pry the warhound off my leg.

"Fergus is here, of course, scouting at the moment. Have you seen him?"

"I wouldn't recognize the man on sight, Duncan."

And thank the Maker for _that_. Otherwise the commander might have sent me to inform him of the death of everyone he knew, scouting or not.

"Alright. I have a new recruit, Elissa, so keep your eye out. Acquaint yourselves and find me. You'll be going with the other two into the Wilds to get the blood, as well as something else I need you to find for me. Oh, and _try_ to be tactful, Alistair."

And of course, after that, I had been roped into offending some mages by showing them my ex-Templar face. I heard light footsteps coming up the stairs and assumed that it was another mage come to their colleague's rescue from the scary monster. Then I glimpsed the tell-tale contours of female leather armour out of the corner of my eye, leaving that possibility out.

"What her Reverence 'desires' is of no concern to me! I am busy helping the Grey Wardens—by the King's orders, I might add!"

The mage was deliberately being difficult and his arrogant replies to a simple request were starting to bother me. All he had needed to do was just _nod_ and gone to see the bloody woman without pausing to challenge me and act like I had held a dagger to his throat demanding that he get on his knees and lick her shoes.

"Should I have asked her to write a note?" I inquired pleasantly, pointing out silently that he was acting like a _child_ , and to a man several years his junior.

"Tell her I will not be harassed in this manner!"

My temper flared but I managed to keep the cutting tones from my voice... even if the sarcasm stayed.

"Yes, I was harassing you by _delivering a message_."

"Your glibness does you no credit."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

"Here I thought we were getting along so well. I was even going to name one of my children after you… the _grumpy_ one."

"Enough! I will speak to the woman if I must. Get out of my way, fool!"

I wasn't sad to see him go, but his parting words directed at the waiting woman made her purse her lips and fold her arms. She didn't move an inch, and the mage nearly fell over, he stumbled so hard after knocking into her. I cackled inwardly as I stepped towards her, watching how he hurried away and rubbed his arm.

"You know, one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together."

She cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. A fellow eyebrow raiser! I continued.

"It's like a party! We could all stand in a circle and hold hands. _That_ would give the darkspawn something to think about." She remained silent. I abruptly realized that I didn't know who she actually was. "Wait, we haven't met, have we?"I also became aware of how clichéd that had sounded, and carried on quickly: "I don't suppose you happen to be another mage?" Though I knew for a fact that there weren't any battle mages in Ostagar, nor would there be any more mages arriving from the Circle.

"We have not met. You must be Alistair." Wow, she sounded really… _really_ noble. Like, really noble. Probably knows Cailan by name sort of noble.

"And that makes you Duncan's new recruit, I suppose. Glad to meet you."

She was… not what I had been expecting. Not some tough female guard with tattoos aplenty, hair shorn short, more aggressive than most of the guys as she reminded them constantly that _yes I can beat you in an arm wrestling match_. Most of the female warriors I had met had been like that, and I couldn't blame them for wanting to prove their mettle, though truthfully I hadn't met many… She did have tattoos, actually. At first I'd thought it was make-up.

I realised I'd been staring.

But really, with the tattoos, weapons and armour, I should have realized before now. Just because the order didn't have many women, didn't meant that they all had to look like men. And she didn't look like a man. She was definitely a woman. Anyway.

"As the junior member of the Order, I'll be accompanying you when you prepare for the Joining."

"Pleased to meet you. My name is Elissa."

She _really_ sounded like a noble now.

I abruptly realized then that the crest on her amour was not the Highever crest, but the _Cousland_ crest, and that her hair was the typical dark _Cousland_ hair, and that her refined appearance and noble name matched up with what I knew of teyrn Bryce Cousland's daughter.

 _Maker's holy buttcrack_. If there was ever a time to tread carefully with the subject areas of my comedic talents.

I felt like hitting myself as I remembered that Duncan had explicitly told me to be tactful.

"Right, that was the name!" I said in a way that pointed towards my having a bad memory, rather than pointing towards how I had known about her before we met. People loved nothing more than gossiping about nobles; I knew that she was the oldest unmarried noblewoman, and that she'd caused quite the scandal last year when she'd rejected some lord's son or other. People talked about her as if she was _ancient_ , but she looked... young? Younger than me?

Anyway, I changed the subject, probably not skilfully but at least it had some relevance.

"So I'm curious; have you ever actually encountered darkspawn before?"

"No, I have not."

She had a moment of being very still, but she didn't look scared, or curious, or nervous, simply matter-of-fact. I had to admit I was a little impressed.

"When I fought my first one, I wasn't prepared for how monstrous it was. I can't say I'm looking forward to encountering another." Her slow nod told me that she realized I was trying to forewarn her, instead of frightening her. "Anyhow, whenever you're ready, let's get back to Duncan. I imagine he's eager to get things started."

"I look forward to travelling with you."

Though she was as expressionless as ever, she sounded quite genuine. I hid my surprise. "You do? Huh. Well that's a switch." I sounded a little too self-deprecating. I should have learnt by now to accept compliments graciously, even if I was far more used to people responding to my sarcasm either in kind or with disdain. "If you have any questions, let me know, otherwise, lead on."

And she nodded and we both set off in search of the Warden Commander.

It was unusual, how she didn't comment on how I resembled Cailan, whom she had obviously just seen. Then again, she was quite reserved, quiet and not wearing anything on her sleeve. As we walked together, I noticed how she was tense as a strung bow, drawn tightly into herself, but I suppose anyone would be, suddenly surrounded by armed strangers and waiting to battle darkspawn. I mulled over whether to fill the silence with babble or just remain quiet, and decided on the latter for now.

When we met Duncan, he spared no time in chastising me. I did feel a little ashamed; I had known truly that following the Revered Mother's wishes wasn't keeping the peace, and that in fact I was being irritating. I set off to find Jory and left Elissa talking to Daveth, who had snuck up at some point, about his awful pick-up techniques. Chiefly how ineffective they were on her. When I returned, she was the only one more to the point than Duncan, not pausing to ask why they needed darkspawn blood, and only taking a second to confirm the second objective.

"Let us go."

Jory had looked hesitant and Daveth had been deliberately eyeing her breastplate. Elissa said nothing, but when she turned towards me I could see that there was a grumpy edge to her face that told how very little she appreciated Daveth's taste in humour. I heard said man chuckling, clearly well aware of how he had annoyed the other initiate.

We heard a bark behind us and the mabari from earlier leaped to a stop next to Elissa, turning his head to look up at her dolefully even as he wagged his tail enthusiastically. She sighed and some tension actually seemed to leave her as she scratched behind an ear.

"No, Dal, I haven't forgotten about you, but you're not coming with us."

The canine whined pitifully. Was I imagining the inquisitive tone?

"No, you can't, the darkspawn blood might make you sick. We need you in top form for the battle, so be a good boy and rest until then."

She smoothed her hand over his head as Dal's ears lowered and his stubby tail drooped. He looked over at me, and I knew he was asking me to help his case. I held up my hands, palms facing outwards, in a _I had nothing to do with this_ gesture.

"You heard the lady."

He finally dropped his head and let Elissa scratch behind his ears again before he slunk off back towards the warm fire.

"That your warhound, then?"

"Yes."

Jory and I laughed as Daveth begged her to forgive his transgressions and she sent us looks, her lips twisting into an unimpressed sneer and cutting our amusement rather short. An uncomfortable silence reigned for a while as we trundled off to the food tent to have a short food break to keep us going. She acted like one of the guys at the table, not bothering with the manners that must have been so deeply ingrained into her. She didn't eat with her fingers or slop lager everywhere like some of the others, but she definitely leant forward and whenever someone directly addressed her, which is the only time she would speak, she would respond without stopping to finish her mouthful first. Her movements were quick and focused, much like someone who was used to food disappearing quickly. I made a note to ask her about it later... That was, if she survived her Joining.

 _She will, Alistair. They all will._ I told myself firmly, knowing that I had to believe it.

Once the meal was over, we trooped off towards the gates. I could have whacked the guard upright the head when he wished us luck; Jory already had a poor attitude and we didn't need him soiling his underclothes from fear before we even _got_ anywhere. I watched the man as the guard opened the gate, then switched to Daveth who seemed to be running on nervous energy. Elissa was still hard to read, I couldn't even tell if she had impressive control over her facial expressions or if she was just so unmoved she didn't have any reactions to control. I supposed it could be a noble thing, having to put up with endless banquets and suitors and people you didn't like.

As we all left Ostagar and slipped into the dark, dank Wilds, I didn't quite know what it was that set my teeth on edge. Other than the darkspawn, that is.


	2. Chapter 2

Had Elissa been a man, she would probably be wielding a greatsword and taking down half a dozen enemies with one swing. As it was, she had two slim but sturdy blades, the longer of which was what I knew to be her family sword, simply because the hilt was so ornate and well cared for. She was fast and nimble, and almost recklessly aggressive. Half the time the darkspawn didn't get close to landing a hit, and even if they did it didn't slow her down or distract her. I was surprised at the amount of force she was able to put behind her swings; she certainly didn't _look_ like she was capable of splintering armour like that. Every fight seemed to imbue her with the kind of fury I had rarely seen, only heard of. Every darkspawn seemed to have insulted her with its very existence.

That might have had something to do with the scouting party – or more accurately, what remained of it – that we had found earlier. Elissa had inspected the dead bodies as I bandaged up the survivor, and then asked the man about her brother. Once he had professed to know nothing about any Fergus Cousland, she had stalked off into some reeds and stayed there until the poor man had stuttered out of sight. I imagined no knowledge of her brother was torturing her, but that was better than knowing for sure he had been butchered by darkspawn.

In any case, her prowess with a weapon was now obvious. Not that I had expected Duncan to have made a bad choice – though the circumstances of her recruitment could just as well make her a last resort rather than first choice – but Grey Wardens had to be more than that, more than just warriors. We had to be made of stern stuff to survive becoming a Warden, and to be able to do what others could not.

The only one I had seen show real evidence of that conviction and self-assurance that you were on the right path and doing the right thing was Daveth, but I also suspected the circumstances of _his_ recruitment had a lot to do with that. Still, I had heard rumours that Duncan had a similar background, and I was hardly one to judge. I did have reservations about Jory, who despite being a Knight was scared and nervous. Elissa didn't seem to feel anything at all, except annoyance at Jory's jitters.

Then again, this was my first time accompanying any of them... I doubted I knew exactly what to look for.

But you definitely couldn't be afraid of death, or darkspawn. Such a _common_ trait made recruiting fairly simple, really. But I thought that they all happened to have that in various degrees, with Jory again being the most questionable. In fact, Elissa looked down on Ser Jory's reluctance to put himself in danger, though the worst she did was make a joke on the irony of her being a woman and the bravest of the lot of them. I rather liked her after that, though covering my laugh by forcing myself to cough silently had been hard.

I tried not to betray any reaction as she slowed to keep pace with me as we trundled along through the hills.

"Alistair, this is clearly a test of some kind. Is there any information you can volunteer?"

And wow did my name sound actually sexy in a noblewoman's accent.

I shrugged. "Well, this isn't the last part of the test is all I can say."

"Hmm." She considered with a tilted head and gauntleted fingers tapping on her arm. "And what do you think of my chances?"

You lack the basic rigorous combat training of any soldier, so you don't have the form or stamina you should. You are quick, agile and focused. You know how to improvise, how to flank, how to take advantage of openings and even how to shrug off a hit. Definitely a quick-thinker with an ability to get out of tight spots. You are also learned, assured and determined, and your chances are about as high as they're going to get.

But I decided not to say that.

"Well, mainly we have to decapitate darkspawn, and you seem to be pretty good at it." There, that was a pretty accurate summary.

She nodded. "Tell me, did you have to do something like this?"

"Yeeees… darkspawn are pretty disgusting, aren't they, so really, this is to see if you can handle seeing their ugly mugs."

A man's voice interrupted us from ahead.

"Hey, stop giving the woman help!"

Elissa raised an eyebrow at Daveth, who had turned around in front of us where he had been walking just out of earshot.

"Oh? _The woman_?" Elissa asked incredulously.

Daveth grinned 'roguishly' and gestured. "Yeah, Alistair, stop trying to garner favour with the lady."

Jory rolled his eyes in the background. I felt like laughing; this was the Order, all right. Bad jokes and camaraderie: get your fill.

"Daveth, two things. First: I asked, he answered. Second: do not call me woman. Understand?"

He bowed mockingly to her waspish tone. "As you wish, my lady." But when Jory surreptitiously tripped him up, Elissa actually had to bite off a guffaw, and the slight tension had dissipated. Daveth and Jory had bickered, leaving us alone again. But she said no more and seemed happiest with silence. I wondered if she were worried about me asking the details of her recruitment.

And then we met the witch. I didn't bothered to mask my immediate distrust of a Chasind that spoke so haughtily whilst dressed in scraps. Elissa addressed the hag so politely. The hag so keen to label me as a moron and look down her nose at me with her weirdly-coloured eyes.

But in the end we had gotten what we wanted, though meeting Morrigan's mother would have stayed bottom on my list of things I wanted to do for many years, and I did have to reluctantly admit she had preserved the treaties even if I was suspicious of her motives.

When we returned to Duncan, Elissa took a second to slip off and hand away the pretty flowers she'd picked to help the mabari. I wondered if the warhound from earlier was not actually hers, and in fact just one that had escaped the carnage, and that led me to wondering whether the realization of all that had happened simply hadn't crashed down on her yet. She seemed a decent candidate, but I wondered if a bit more strain would make her crack.

A few short hours later, as we waited for Duncan to arrive, I listened quietly to the three initiates' views on what being a Warden was all about. Jory seemed to be regretting it, but Daveth seemed very willing to commit, though Maker knew I could sympathise with needing a cause to believe in, and Elissa was quiet but calm, as she always was without her swords in her hands.

I only had two seconds of doubt during the ritual, but I reminded myself of the necessity; of the Joining, of Wardens. As I spoke the words, I knew that doing so was an honour.

I couldn't claim much surprise that she had accepted the chalice silently and survived. We hovered over the stone bench we had laid her on and waited, knowing that she was through the worst but that everyone did so at different rates. When she did wake, she opened her eyes and met our gazes briefly before staring straight up at the sky. She nodded as we told her that she had time to recover and remained prone, but as I walked away her mabari dashed past me. I heard her greeting him, followed by her footsteps hurrying to fall into step with Duncan's. She was tough.

And when a half-hour or so later, and I was warmed from the fire and they appeared, she looked as she always had, utterly calm, face as quiet as the surface of lake Calenhad.

Then Duncan revealed his and Cailan's poorly-concealed plan to get me out of the way and most importantly out of _danger_. I wondered fleetingly what she thought of it all. I couldn't figure out whether she had realised or not as she graciously accepted her meagre duties and didn't mock me a single time about my desire to be in the thick of the battle.

It was only later as we warmed ourselves by the fire that she stepped closer to me and for one terrifying second I thought the possibility of friendship was being squished under the heel of an attractive noble lady who liked young blond ex-Templars. But then she looked up at me with focused intensity and spoke to me very quietly.

"What is the real reason we are being sent to light the beacon?"

I let out a huff of breath, visible in the cold, frigid air, and banged my hands together.

"Because it needs to be lit?"

I knew it was fishy; I myself had been complaining earlier about the King needing two Wardens to hold the torch. Elissa looked at me levelly and waited.

I shrugged. She didn't need to know and I had no incentive to trust her with such a dangerous secret.

"I suppose they want to make extra sure that our charming personalities make it through the night."

That was close enough to the truth, wasn't it?

The girl raised one eyebrow and lowered the other, a dubious look that sat inexplicably well on her elegant face. I almost laughed as she grumbled but realized that she wasn't going to get anything out of me. She left instead to get a tincture to make sure that her blades weren't sticking to her sheathes from cold and I was left looking after her, shaking my head in disbelief. There was something a little unnerving with her calm. It reminded me of the more senior Templars I had known.

I scowled at the fire, feeling a little guilty for judging her. I reminded myself that when I was training to be a Templar, something I wouldn't have minded if it had been my choice but hated because it hadn't been, I had been resigned to my fate, and let out my frustrations with pranks and irritating sarcasm because that was the opposite of the emotional control Templars were supposed to have. I highly doubted the same outlets worked for Elissa, and it wasn't my place to judge that hers weren't breaking down into tears all the time and being openly sensitive. And maybe she did cry, just not where other people could see. Had I bawled in the middle of the mess hall or during training? I shifted uneasily as I considered that, for all I knew, she cried herself to sleep every night just like I had all those years ago.

When she came back, I tried not to be too obvious about how I felt uncomfortable meeting her eye, even while I tried to figure out whether she looked like she had been crying. Instead I just stared at her tattoos for a while and then mentally cringed when she glanced at me.

She reached a hand up to her eyes.

"I know," she said almost, _almost_ , ruefully, "dynastic tattoos have not been popular for decades." She turned to me and gave me a sardonic little smirk. "You need not pretend you like them."

"I do like them," I rejoindered automatically, though I wasn't lying. I could barely see the pale blue without the sun. They were interesting. "How did you make them that colour?"

She shrugged as she checked her weapons. "I requested something that was not too striking and this is the result."

"Oh, they're striking, all right."

She frowned at me and I brought my hands up quickly, waving them about helplessly. She has her hands on pointy things right now _you fool_ , I scolded myself.

"Not in a bad way!"

Her lips actually quirked into a small smile and she looked away quickly.

I coughed and tried again, a little bolstered by the rare show of amusement.

"I imagine you could start a trend. Maybe that will be a female Grey Warden _thing_ , getting tattoos. Do you have any more?"

I asked curiously. I knew that tattoos hurt, though I doubted that would stop her. She had certainly kept it together earlier when a darkspawn had wrenched at her arm and dislocated it.

She slid her eyes to me and an entirely new expression appeared on her face as one side of her mouth curved up.

"Are you asking me to _show_ you?" She was looking at me very steadily.

I gulped and raised my hands again, this time defensively, as I stepped away. I may have been an innocent and virtuous Chantry boy, but I could read her tone.

"Um, no, not at all! Aha! Just curious," I said desperately, and she actually chuckled a little as she looked away.

"Just teasing," and her voice was the warmest I'd ever heard it. She seemed to realise the same thing, and a little line appeared between her eyebrows and she shifted on her feet, her gaze down briefly before flicking to where Duncan was.

"I am going to see how much longer we have before it starts," she said rather shortly, and left before I could reply.

I stared after her, feeling uncertain, though I wasn't sure what I had done.


	3. Chapter 3

The Tower was exhausting. Not just physically; I spent the first few floors worrying and stressing constantly about the circumstances that had allowed darkspawn to even _be_ here. At first I wondered whether Loghain had relocated his men and there hadn't been time to tell us, but when I saw the half-dozen faltering guards bearing his insignia, I knew that they must simply have been overwhelmed—but how? There was one way to get into the Tower, and we were using it, and it was presumably the place they had been watching. So how had they gotten past? Had the darkspawn been making a path up the hillside through the forest? Had their numbers grown to a point where they could afford to even do that? And why would they target the Tower, in any case, if only a few dozen men were here? Unless their numbers were even higher than we had thought, and they outnumbered us to a point where they planned a full elimination, dispatching troops simultaneously to all our different locations. With an archdemon, that level of organization was easily possible.

I stopped thinking about it after that, reminding myself that I had barely been here a week myself and that there could be another way into the Tower that, by some unlucky chance, the darkspawn had found. We were hardly searching every room as we tried to get to the upper floors as quickly as possible.

But I'd had to say something when we reached the second floor and the floor was shaking ever so slightly with movement and there was a background hum of rough, inhuman voices... Not to mention that my other sense was itching like mad.

"How come these bastards are even _here_ , blast it?" I hissed. I was mortified a second later when Elissa looked a little surprised at my language. Not offended or repulsed, simply surprised, and that made me feel more embarrassed than anything else could have. I had just cursed in front of an actual _lady_. I felt my ears going red.

"Sorry," I muttered.

Elissa shrugged, waving a dismissive hand.

"Just one of the guys, remember?" She said flatly as she referred to Daveth asking her why there weren't more women in the Order. When she had replied that most women were too smart to join the Wardens, I'd asked what that made her, and she'd tilted her head and pursed her lips before shrugging.

"But how _did_ they get in here?"

The mage who had managed to survive the earlier massacre of Loghain's men was splattered in blood and his eyes were wide. He wasn't used to being anywhere near his opponents, and the stench of darkspawn had made him go white and shaky like a leaf. I dropped a hand onto his shoulder.

"They probably just found another way in that we don't know about."

Elissa nodded in agreement, and the mage had seemed somewhat reassured.

"You're probably right. Let's just light your beacon as quickly as possible."

The mage said, looking wistfully towards the dormitories where he had probably been sleeping the last few nights. We forged ahead, and despite the high number of darkspawn, nobody was seriously injured and Elissa even managed to get a ballista working, pinning more than one creature to the ground for me to take care of.

We arrived at the stairs for the last level actually feeling invigorated. We were going to succeed and light the beacon, and the battle would be won, and this would just be an unfortunate but not insurmountable aberration.

But we were in for a nasty shock.

I hadn't expected us to actually _face_ a thrice-damned ogre on the second night of meeting each other. It seemed horribly unfair that Elissa had arrived early morning, spent the better part of the day in the Wilds facing her first darkspawn, met her first local lunatic, seen two others die before her eyes, survived the Joining and then gone on to be ambushed by a whole host of hurlocks, genlocks and emissaries. _And_ an ogre.

But she seemed genuinely ready for the challenge, somehow, as we slew every vessel of evil incarnate in our way. She didn't hesitate in lighting the tower, because it was obvious that things had gone very wrong _very_ fast and that darkspawn were already spilling past the line. We needed support and we needed it _now_. I watched, waiting with baited breath for Loghain's men to come charging in from the flank as planned, but… nothing. Elissa had started to pace and was muttering to herself, while the mage had collapsed in exhaustion.

"Alistair, I think—" Elissa began, only to be interrupted by a heavy thud against the door.

We moved quickly, but not quickly enough.

I was horrified when I saw Elissa go down, looking more like a pincushion than anything I had seen in a while. I felt a flash of panic and shame; unapproachable as she might be, she was also a _woman_ and I had failed to protect her. She was a Grey Warden and I had failed to protect her. Everything was going wrong.

Seeing bright red spray out of the mage's neck, I knew he was beyond help. I rushed towards Elissa, hoping to shield her before the darkness took us, hoping that somebody would come to the rescue if I held out long enough.

The next thing I knew, the uncomfortable buzz of nearby darkspawn was almost non-existent, but Morrigan's charming visage was in my peripheral. I was actually glad to see her again, though of course I would never say that out loud, and she quickly ruined it by casually informing me that we had lost and the King's army as well as all the Grey Wardens had been slain. She watched as I struggled to stand, slipping on the reed mats I'd been lying on, and barred my way into the little hut when I tried to see how Elissa was faring.

The horrible woman also seemed to have an innate talent at quickly discovering what subject areas made you darned uncomfortable.

"I do not think that she would appreciate you seeing her in such a state of undress, Warden."

The condescending, cool words had immediately set my mind off wondering exactly how many items of clothing Elissa Cousland currently had on, before I clamped down on the thought and asked her, using as few insults as possible, the actual extent of the injuries.

"I would think that you… _saw_ for yourself, did you not?"

I had been about to open my mouth to retort that the only reason I had been lying over Elissa when she found us was to protect her with my shield from more arrows, when the infuriating woman glided off into the hut, leaving me there red, stammering, and alone with no real reassurance that I wasn't going to be the only one to make it through this. The trouble was that I didn't even trust Morrigan to be a decent enough person to refrain from teasing if the situation were dire.

After that I was left alone with my grief, and I found myself standing at the edge of the water looking out at the dreary landscape. I was imagining Cailan, the Wardens, Duncan, all of them dying at the hands of darkspawn. I couldn't find it in me anywhere to conjure up tears. There was a scary, numb emptiness that made it hard to feel anything. I asked myself if this was real, if I was going to wake up again in an uncomfortable tent in Ostagar.

When Flemeth appeared beside me, though, I spoke.

"How is Elissa? Morrigan wouldn't let me see her."

"She'll be fine, boy," She replied shortly. But in all honesty, she didn't need to say more.

I let the silence eat us up for what seemed like the better part of an hour before I asked her again, just to break the silence. Flemeth didn't get annoyed, she simply replied again:

"You will see soon enough, boy."

I couldn't find the energy for one of my usual retorts so we lapsed into silence again. Flemeth disappeared for a minute or two but then returned, and after I put the armour she had returned to me back on, we stayed in the same place for what must have been at least two hours. Dal woke up and came over to me once, from his guard post outside the hut entrance, to whine and butt his head against my leg. I scratched his neck and let him move his head until I was scratching behind his ears, just like I had seen Elissa do.

Eventually, I heard a thump from inside the hut and muffled voices. I was pulled too thin to let myself even hope by then, but something in me still held its breath as it waited. When she emerged, I almost couldn't believe it. She looked perfectly healthy, too, not a limp or even a bad scar or any other deformity. My disbelief escaped my mouth before my exhausted brain could catch up, but luckily Elissa didn't take offense. Or at least, she didn't betray any, though this time it seemed to be because she was too overwhelmed rather than stoically indifferent.

I managed to admit to her how I couldn't believe that it had all happened. At the same time, I was so delirious to see her alive as it sunk in that she _was_ still breathing that I felt the desperate need to pull her to me and feel her heart beating, feel that her skin was still warm. I doubted she would appreciate that so I resisted and managed to get by on the sound of her hushed voice. She looked shaken; her wide eyes made her look very young. I wondered how old she actually was, how many battles she'd actually been in.

I could never have been able to say to her that things were alright, when it was so blatant that things had spectacularly fallen apart. And all it had taken was one man.

Ferelden would fall to this Blight, because Loghain had decided to tear our forces apart. Although Flemeth had ideas, I couldn't wrap my head around how such a man – the Hero of the River Dane, who had featured in childhood stories Ferelden over – could make such a choice.

I'd thought things were hopeless before, when I neared my twentieth summer and the time for taking my Vows came. I realized now that fearing for your own future is nothing compared to the despair that comes with fearing for the future of your country, and those beyond it. As Wardens, it was our duty and our honour to stand between our countrymen and the darkspawn, and now… we were two. If we stood between them, we would simply die. We were not enough. But what else could we do? Turn our backs on Ferelden, on the duty we swore we would not forsake?

When she began to discuss with Flemeth and I what to do about Loghain, and we started talking about Arl Eamon, I had a euphoric epiphany. Then Elissa and I said at the same time "the treaties!" and then looked at each other, our surprise turning into hope. Elissa was nodding her head enthusiastically as I recounted the list of those obligated to aid us during a Blight. As we decided that we would embark on our mission, that terrible hope burned in me. Could we, two lone Wardens, actually accomplish the duty of the whole Order? It wasn't like we lacked the things to try: we had the treaties, the skills needed to travel about in the countryside, and enough supplies and money to get started.

We had nothing to lose, and Duncan wouldn't have wanted us to do any less.

I put up a token protest when Flemeth told Morrigan to come with us, but Elissa was very blunt about the fact that we needed all the help we could get. She asked if I would really rather not have a mage with us, and I had to sigh and admit that she was right.

Life seemed less charming with that _shrew_ around, but now we had a clear purpose. We were actually _doing_ something, something that would avenge Duncan and everyone else at Ostagar, something that would make us –them– feel that their loss wasn't totally in vain.

I'd been quieter than my usual self, I knew. Even people who hadn't known me long could tell. I just couldn't shake the thought that perhaps I could have saved Duncan, had I been there. Taken the hit that would have killed him and given him enough time to get out of there. If only… Duncan and Elissa would have made a natural team. The Warden Commander and a name that carried weight amongst the nobles would have had a far better chance at first recruiting Warden allies and then uniting the Landsmeet against Loghain… But Duncan wasn't here anymore. No amount of wishes would bring him back. All I could do was the best I could. Elissa would get things done, that much I could tell about her. She was a woman of few words and decisive action. If we worked together, we might just be able to give the country a fighting chance.

Still, it was easier said than done. I was aware I needed to buckle up and just get on with things, but it was difficult to stop myself from being broody. From thinking about what could be different, if things had taken a better path.

When Elissa dumped herself next to the camp fire on the last night before reaching Lothering, I was back to wondering what the Maker had done to this girl to make her so far from the pampered noblewoman that should realistically have died to Howe's men. We sat in silence, and I tried to stop staring as she stiffly informed me that she was there if I ever needed to talk about it. She sent one glance my way and then left the subject alone, looking almost as uncomfortable as I felt but allowing me to start a much less strenuous talk of where we should be planning to go first.

If I were a braver man, I would have told her how grateful I was that she was here, that I didn't have to face this alone, but I had quailed in the face of such honesty, so I had stuck to complimenting her cooking and telling ridiculous stories, trying to get her to smile more.

Maybe one day, we would be good enough friends I could tell her that, for one thing, she really was a good cook, and for another, she was exactly the kind of person you want to have on your side for this sort of thing.


	4. Chapter 4

Lothering was exactly what I had been expecting: packed, picturesque and depressing. But their lay sisters were quite unusual, if the one from the tavern was anything to go by.

She called herself Leliana, and to be frank, anyone who claimed to have visions from the Maker was branded as "loony" in my book. Though she seemed to be a lot about "ooh pretty colours!" inoffensive loopy instead of psychotic and "muahaha, I am Princess Stabitty! Stab, kill, kill!" dangerous loopy. Though either way, decidedly abnormal.

Elissa, in the true tactical form I'd witnessed when we first met Morrigan, managed to accept the bard into our little group _and_ avoid an argument. I hadn't even needed to give my vote; it seemed that we were alike in thinking that we needed all the help we could get. So we set off with Leliana in tow, meeting Sten. I had been surprised at the qunari's easy admission of murder, but shocked when Elissa actually went to the trouble of convincing the Revered Mother in Lothering of releasing him. As we waited in a little side room in the Chantry, I decided it couldn't hurt to ask.

"So, what do you actually think of Morrigan?"

Elissa raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth in an expression of feigned innocence that really did not suit her.

"What do you mean?"

I didn't even bother with sending her a look. "You know, you act like you get along swell and all, but I bet you hate her _really_."

Elissa had shrugged. "Morrigan has had a hard life. I am not going to blame her for being..." Elissa rubbed her chin for a good half minute while she came up with the word. "Prickly. I've met people like her before and you become accustomed to it. Do not take it personally."

I wondered how I was supposed to do that, when Morrigan certainly always tried to make her derisive comments _personal_.

"It doesn't get on your nerves?"

She looked away and shrugged nonchalantly.

"Perhaps, but I have to be ready to mediate between you two," she said drolly without a hint of sarcasm - and I did provoke Morrigan in all fairness.

I was taken completely by surprise as Elissa reached over and poked me in the ribs, hard enough for me to feel it through my chainmail and cringe away. Something almost a smile spread across her face. Something much more dangerous. "You are… ticklish," she said slowly, and I felt seriously afraid as she bore down upon me, a strange light in her eyes as she tried to reach my sides.

"Stop!" She didn't. "Please! Don't hurt me!"

She chuckled slightly, a strange look on her face as she backed away, hands help up in a gesture of peace. "I will leave you alone. But no more questions, and do not say a _thing_ to Morrigan." She pointed her finger at me, raising an eyebrow to warn me that she was serious. Then someone came to tell us the Revered Mother was available and she turned her attention away from me as we were led away.

There was a Templar in the room. Two, in fact.

I began to feel ill at ease, as I always did when faced with the uncomfortable plate and stoic expressions that I should have been wearing myself. Few people liked those who had abandoned Templar training. I was a failure to other Templars, who still managed to make me feel like a naughty child caught sneaking mud into boots again.

I decided to catch a breather and left the room quietly as Elissa began to work her magic. That woman could turn diplomacy on and off like a switch.

As I slipped into the private back gardens, I spotted it.

The rose seemed so distinctly out of place, a real splash of vivid colour amongst the greys and blacks. The rest of the bush was so gnarled and brittle; if not for the one surviving blossom I would have labelled it dead. I snuck a look around over the hedges to make sure I was alone, and I heard nothing, so I followed the impulse and quickly plucked the flower and hid it in my pack, wrapping it carefully in some clean rags I had yet to use for cleaning my armour. I stayed out there a minute before returning to the library and pretending I had been reading some book or another.

A few minutes later, Elissa tapped me on the shoulder, dangled a key and gestured for me to follow as we left.

I wanted to ask how she managed to do it, but I settled for silence. As we left and met up with a scowling Morrigan, I found my eyes drawn to Elissa. While it was comforting to now know that she wasn't as fond of the witch as she might make it seem, I still decided to have serious words with our leader because the newest tag-along seemed seriously dangerous, not to mention seriously _creepy_.

I ignored the fact that I hadn't objected to recruiting Leliana nearly as much.

As we were leaving Lothering, we ended up actually running into a group of darkspawn attacking two dwarves. It was a bad sign for the town; that had probably been a scouting party sent ahead of a main horde not far behind.

That night, after a harrowing day of finding dead ladies and giant spiders, I asked Elissa why we happened to have a qunari in our camp.

"Why did we recruit Sten?"

I asked, trying to gauge a reaction to my inquiry, wondering if I was questioning her decision-making abilities. Elissa shrugged slightly as she cleaned her boots.

"I was not there. I cannot know what pushed him to do what he did, or even what truly happened. In any case, redemption seems to be what he wants now and if I can offer that, and gain help against the Blight, then I shall hold out on my judgments for now."

I sidled a little closer.

"But if we realise that he _is_ in the habit of eating children and he does go all 'qunari honour demands that I chop off your head right _now_ ' for trying to boot him out, you will dump him into the nearest lake, right?"

"I shall keep that option in mind." Elissa replied dryly, though her eyes sparkled with amusement. Though maybe that was just the light.

"Ah, good to know." I said appreciatively.

My thoughts drifted as we settled into companionable silence. It was often like that; usually I found silence stifling, or awkward, or boring… but now, I was almost glad.

Morrigan had even taken to preparing her own fire, and I suspected that the only other woman in the camp besides Elissa and the shrew herself had taken to provoking the apostate by deliberately sitting next to it, with a very convincing innocent air. Sten seemed to be keeping to himself, sitting alone on a really uncomfortable-looking rock, so it was still just me and Elissa around the main fire.

I noticed Elissa finish her task and neatly set her boots together in front of her tent. She sat down again, looking as she often did when she didn't have a task to occupy her… lost.

"Duncan was the one who recruited me, you know. He rescued me from a life of interminable boredom."

Her eyes focused on the present again and flicked towards me.

"And what life was that, pray tell?"

"The Chantry. I was being raised as a Templar when Duncan decided that I would be better off serving the Wardens. He had to invoke the Right of Conscription, though."

Elissa smirked a little, and I just _knew_ that she was thinking 'this explains a lot'. I wondered what she would think if I told her I'd slept in stables the first decade of my life. Probably the same thing.

"Why would they want to keep someone so unwilling to stay? Or was that gained later?"

"Oh no," I laughed. "I hated every moment there. And I truly have no idea why the grand cleric wanted to keep me. Perhaps she just despised the thought of handing anything over to the Wardens."

"And how was it, the change to being a Warden?"

It was funny, how life chewing you up and spitting you out together changed things. Before, I might have shrugged and said, "oh, you know, the ale and dancing ladies really warmed me up to the Order. Made me quite fond of it, really, even with all the beheadings and death." Instead, I found myself actually trying to find the words without referring to my bastard status. I'd felt a bond with my Warden brothers and sisters since my Joining, but… that was changed now. Elissa was the only Warden left that I knew. I supposed it made some sense, the stronger connection I felt to her. Not that she could ever be a replacement, but…

I told myself to focus and answer her question.

"It was… refreshing. It was a relief, and suddenly my life had a meaning, even if it was a pretty simple one like _kill all the cursed darkspawn_."

I had revealed quite a bit more than I wanted to and felt exposed, waiting for a jibe, but Elissa remained quiet.

Alright, this time I _did_ need to fill the silence.

"And how about you? What has being a Warden been like, for you? Pretty terrible, I'd wager."

She hummed in agreement, her hands absently tugging at each other as she stared over the fire into the forest we'd camped on the edge of.

"Being a Grey Warden is my duty," she said eventually.

Duty, I mused.

I watched as Dal bounded over and tried to knock Elissa onto her back. She was smiling as she buried her face in his fur, arms slipping around his body which was shaking from side to side, his stumpy little tail was wagging so hard. Dal was the only thing that could make Elissa smile, really.

Then she noticed that he was covered in mud.

I tried not to laugh at the look on her face, but she heard me anyway and—was Elissa Cousland sticking her tongue out at me? I laughed harder as Dal leaped upwards and Elissa spluttered as she got a literal mouthful of muddy fur.

"Ardal!" She chastised him as she stood and looked down at herself in disgust. Dal continued looking quite cheerful as he sat at her feet, grinning at her as his tail wagged a little dip in the ground. "You did that on purpose!" She wagged her finger at him, and he barked as he jumped around. He seemed to be agreeing with her.

"And you!" She pointed at me, one hand on her hip and her eyes looking stormy, even as her lips twitched. "Stop guffawing. You can go and give Dal a bath before does any more damage."

"Wait, what?!" I asked, but she was already ducking into her tent.

I looked at Dal. He looked back at me for a second, tail and body totally still, before he started racing off towards Morrigan and Leliana, barking happily.

"Maker's breath!" I cursed as I jumped up and started after him.

Mabari were _definitely_ too smart for their own good.


	5. Chapter 5

Most mornings I woke just before sunrise. Some habits just couldn't be broken, even if nobody else roused for at least an hour and I was always left itching for something to do. Most days I would train, if there was nearby water I would bathe, and if all else failed, I would check over my equipment.

Today, though, I felt like relaxing in my tent. We had just managed to acquire one of the key allies in the treaties, and the fact that Elissa and I were actually succeeding was something I could scarcely believe.

We had marked the Brecilian Forests as our first destination, because after peering at our only slightly inaccurate map of Ferelden and marking how far the darkspawn had come, we'd agreed that the Dalish were those most in danger of being overrun before we could get to them. They would also probably need the most organisation.

And now we had found the Dalish elves; offered to help them; met werewolves, bears and a talking tree whilst we battled through a forest; found our way through a veritable labyrinth; and had just managed to make Zathrain release the werewolves from their curse, despite the cost of his own life and despite how we had actually just been hacking at him with our weapons.

Elissa was better with words than she was with her swords, and that was saying something.

Also, werewolves were quite real and not just a story told to encourage misbegotten little children like myself to stay in bed at night.

Last night, we had returned to camp thoroughly exhausted but decidedly pleased at how much we had completed. I had been in a good mood because, despite my doubts, Elissa and I made a good team. We had already planned out a general route to follow and we seemed to nearly always be in agreement – I wouldn't deny that, as per Morrigan's scathing comments, Elissa was more the leader than I was. She was good at handling people, and she had naturally gravitated into a position of authority. Frankly, I was glad for it. Leading was something I still dreaded, ever since that time Samson had tasked me with organising that blasted training expedition. I still wasn't sure what had happened to my pants.

The more I got to know Elissa – uncovered what was behind the mask – the more grateful I was to have her as a comrade. Yesterday I had even uncovered the first concrete traces of a sense of humour. We had been taking a breather after getting rid of a troublesome little drake whilst Leliana and Morrigan (because they had hung back while we tired ourselves out banging our swords against the monster's scales) searched around for useful items amongst the gathered hoard.

" _Why have you remained a Templar if you hate the Chantry?"_

 _I hadn't expected that one, even though my training before joining the Order had already been discussed at some point or another. Elissa just wasn't usually so probing; she would ask what, when, where… but not why._

" _Haven't you seen the uniform? It's not only stylish, but well-made. I'm a sucker for good tailoring."_

 _She looked confused at that as she drank some water and trickled some down her face and neck before handing it over to me._

" _I thought Templars wore heavy plate, mostly."_

" _Ah, that's just in public. In private, we have these yellow and purple tunics, right? Much more comfortable, and you don't break the beds when you jump on them during a pillow fight."_

 _She smiled a little then, which was the Elissa version of whooping laughter, doubled over slightly as she pulled on the collar of her outfit to try and reach an itch._

" _You had lots of these pillow fights, then, I take it?" She was looking at me sidelong as she continued to wriggle her hand over her collarbone._

 _She was actually playing along!_

" _On confession day we could go all night. Being a Templar isn't all about chasing men in skirts and hiding behind priests, you know." She finally removed her hand and readjusted her gauntlets, lips pursed in what I thought was amusement. "You don't really want to know about my being a Templar, do you? It's really quite boring."_

 _In reality, I didn't want her to start asking too many questions that I would have to deflect. The whole subject made me uncomfortable._

" _I do want to know, yes. And you can always make up something more exciting."_

 _Well, that was new._

" _You know, I like the way you think. But I guess if you're really curious, there's no harm in obliging. I have a couple of interesting-looking moles I can show you later, too, if you're interested." She rolled her eyes, but I knew her well enough now to know that it was good-natured. "The truth of the matter is that I did hate going to the monastery. I felt like I'd been cast off, unwanted, and I was determined to be bitter. But I took some solace in the training itself, I guess. I was actually quite good at it."_

 _Elissa nodded thoughtfully, eyes in the distance. "I think I understand."_

 _I could have left it there, but neither of the other two where anywhere to be seen so I carried on talking, determined to try and start broaching her past now that we had discussed mine. Besides, she hadn't even asked who had sent me to the Chantry. She probably assumed that my parents had been religious fanatics._

" _It took years and it's difficult to achieve the discipline, if rewarding. The religious doctrine and sword training all came later. I never really felt at home, though, until I joined the Grey Wardens. And Duncan felt my Templar abilities might be useful for when we encountered darkspawn magic, so I kept it up. What about you? You've clearly had some weapons training."_

 _I waited, a little nervous. This was the first time I'd ever probed anything to do with Elissa's past._

 _Come to think of it, my staunch avoidance of the topic probably made it very obvious I knew not to ask. Blast._

 _Elissa took a few moments to answer, her head tilted as she considered me. "I was trained in both swordsmanship and archery. It took me years of begging." She sounded… wistful?_

 _I tried to imagine Elissa sitting in a room doing some delicate cross-stitching or whatever it was Ladies did. I realized I couldn't even imagine her in a dress._

" _Did you wear dresses or did you also insist on walking around in that leather armour?" I asked, amused._

" _Dresses are overrated," Elissa informed me dryly, arms crossed._

" _Let me guess, you also climbed a lot of trees and ruined lots of dresses."_

 _She pressed her lips together and made a little snorting sound, clearly trying not to laugh._

" _You've got me," she said, and she was actually smirking a little. Then she looked at me, eyebrows raised. "I would wager that you ran underneath everyone's feet and caused chaos in the kitchen growing up."_

 _I pretended to think about it as I raised a hand to my chin._

" _Well, the cook did call me 'that little hellion'. Or was it rapscallion? Anyhow, he did once threaten to move all the cheeses to the top shelves of the larder. That straightened me up."_

 _The cook had had a little bit of a soft spot for me, actually. Looking back now, I suspected the man had been a bastard himself. That or I had won him over with my charming personality and witty-one liners._

 _Elissa was shaking her head._

" _It is always cheese with you, isn't it?"_

" _Cheese is delicious," I protested. "Nothing's better than a good fondue."_

 _The same cook had made me some for my birthday, once. The birthday before I'd been sent to the Chantry. I'd already been planning how I would become a chef. Ah, the Chantry, destroyer of dreams._

" _Alas, if only you were not a migratory Warden, you could have an entire pantry dedicated to cheese."_

 _Elissa was looking more relaxed than I'd ever seen her, one hand holding onto her elbow as the other rested on her face, fingers not quite covering the smile curving her lips._

" _Imagine the size of the larder at Weisshaupt. I know where I'm going, once we've stopped this Blight."_

" _I am not surprised cheese is all that is needed to lure you in. A merchant could convince you to marry his daughter, if only he had some good cheese."_

 _I gasped in mock delight, hand over my heart. "Being married to the daughter of a cheese merchant! My destiny is clear now."_

 _Elissa snorted in amusement and I grinned, pleased with myself._

 _We lapsed into silence as we watched Leliana coo over a little treasure chest she'd dug out from amongst the gold. She probably hoped to find some jewel-encrusted shoes in there._

" _Do you miss home?" I asked Elissa, quietly, half-expecting… something. Some sort of unfavourable reaction. I couldn't help wanting to know._

 _She didn't react, really, as she was wont. She took a while to reply though, watching as Leliana sifted through what looked like old parchment and tutted in dismay._

" _I suppose… my home is with the Grey Wardens now."_

 _Elissa was generally an honest person, but that was an admission beyond what I'd expected. And I didn't really know how I felt about it._

 _I took a few moments to sort through the surge of emotion her words had caused, and thought that perhaps I liked that so much because the Grey Wardens was home to me, too. If there were two of us, it was definitely real, definitely still here. We were keeping the Grey Wardens alive._

" _Really? I… I guess I like the sound of that."_

 _I looked up and caught her looking steadily at the wall opposite us, and I'd almost opened my mouth to say something more. But then The Shrew returned and informed us that we had much to do and that now wasn't the time for being idle. Elissa agreed that we probably had a lot to explore yet, seemingly unbothered as we rose and Leliana began to lament the lack of good shoes in Ferelden, no matter where she looked._

It had been hard to forget that comfortable companionship, the feeling of ease I had felt despite being some way underground in ruins infested with monsters.

It was… it was awful to have lost the Wardens and Duncan. The nights when I didn't have glorious visions from the Archdemon, I had… well, they started off as memories, usually, sitting around a campfire or a sturdy wooden table, voices I remembered and topics that had made me feel awkward at the time; and then it twisted, mutated. Darkspawn overran camp, or the Archdemon found us, or the ground itself started to swallow people up. I felt guilty that I couldn't remember all their names, even as my mind conjured images of their deaths.

But somehow, that same feeling of belonging still stayed with me, of finally being where I was supposed to be. Maybe because, even as small a number as we were, Elissa and I were still both Wardens and that was enough. It was easier, those times when I sputtered awake from a particularly disturbing vision, sitting bolt upright and nearly hitting my head on the beam holding up my tent as I stumbled out, to find Elissa was awake as well, clearly awoken from the same vision and needing the same air and stars to reorient herself. Those were the times when I had discovered why some people preferred silence; when it was just the two of us, there was no need to pretend, no need to try and smooth things over with jokes and talk… things would feel just fine as she scrounged up some stale bread and I some of my carefully hidden cheese, and we'd pass the time in quiet until dawn with some absolutely awful mead that was so bad that Bodahn, who'd taken to following us around with his caravan, had refused to accept any coin for it.

I blinked back into the present as I heard the sound of Dal barking. Sometimes, he was warning us of people nearby. Other times, it was a squirrel. And yet more times, he was just barking.

Time to get up, then.

Forcing myself out of my lovely warm bedroll, I quickly got dressed in my armour, which was now an almost-new set of chainmail. Thank the Maker for dungeons guarded by dragons.

As I exited my tent I looked over at Elissa, who was in a terribly lively discussion with Sten. I stood close to the fire and idly began checking over my longsword to disguise my interest in the stew Leliana had left unattended. I was just about to make a move when Elissa appeared next to me with a scowl on her face. I jumped; she was in fight mode and had approached me far quieter than normal.

She was… irate. She was quite a small woman and yet, totally intimidating with the right prompting. The tattoos helped.

"Something wrong?" I ventured cautiously, hoping Sten had aggravated her and not I. I had managed to cause ruckus even before breakfast in the past – a skill of mine.

"He seems to believe that being a woman and being a fighter are two mutually exclusive concepts."

I blinked in surprise. "But that's ridiculous."

"Perhaps not for the qunari… In any case, there are few enough female warriors."

"The Wardens have had a number, though none as pretty as you, of course." I smiled to show her I meant nothing by it, and she scoffed, but with no real heat. She crossed her arms and stared at the stew.

 _Now, don't be a coward Alistair. You've faced greater challenges than this. You've drunk darkspawn blood. You've competed in tourneys. You've survived Ostagar. You can do this._

I coughed and then tried to expel all the words at once. "Elissa, thank you for offering to talk. It meant a lot to me."

Elissa seemed a little startled, before she considered me. She must have found what she was looking for, because I was rewarded with a sincere smile and a nod.

There was something about her soft little smiles, especially when usually she was so intense, and focused. She had a gaze that made people look twice from across a room. Her smile would stop people in their tracks… but only a privileged few ever saw it.

"Don't worry about it, Alistair."

"So, you know, I'd just like to say the same thing… You don't have to, of course, but the offer stands."

Her expression dimmed until it was unsure, and then totally blank. "You want to hear about how I joined the Wardens?"

Well, that was a nice way of putting it.

"Yes, well, if it helps…" I nodded vigorously to support my words. She looked at me again, and—truly every time Elissa looked at you it was like being put under scrying glass—I wondered if she was considering that I probably already knew that her recruitment had been under less than ideal circumstances, even if only in general terms. Most Wardens still came from dark places: they were waiting to be executed, or bandits looking for a cause to follow, or orphans starving in the streets, rather than Knights like Jory had been.

"Perhaps another time."

Why did I feel disappointment? I pushed the feeling away as I nodded and tried to find something else to talk about, not sure what I had been expecting, but oddly flat-footed after the rejection. Luckily Leliana returned and we were able to focus on food instead.

The rest of the day was spent travelling out of the forest, keeping northward so as not to veer too closely to the horde still in the south. It was slow going and nearly nightfall by the time we reached more open ground. Elissa made the call to make for camp for now while we still had some cover.

I was set to the task of setting up the tents with Sten and I was glad to be finished, flopping down next to the closest firepit Morrigan had banked up as soon as I'd taken off my heaviest armour pieces.

I watched as Elissa flitted around camp, helping where needed but a little brusquer and colder than what I considered her "normal" now. She hadn't been _avoiding_ me, as such, but there was… something different. Well, she'd behaved more like when I'd first met her; I realised now how raw everything must have been then, that judging her demeanour then as being her usual disposition had been incredibly short-sighted.

I chewed my lip, knowing that it was my doing that wounds had been opened up again, that today had been quieter.

What were you supposed to do in this situation? How was I supposed to fix this?

Then I started berating myself, reminding myself Elissa wasn't mine to fix, that she was doing just fine. If she'd had a day where she hadn't smiled and hadn't talked unless she had to, that wasn't the end of the world.

Somehow it still felt like it though. I'd been a bit moodier than my usual self, even though I'd kept catching myself and asking why I was behaving like an ass. That I wasn't going to help things by antagonising Morrigan or being uninterested in Leliana's stories of the fashion in Orlais or provoking Sten by asking "why?" in response to everything he said.

Honestly, when had I started to become so personally invested in whether Elissa smiled or not? It was ridiculous, I was better than a sulky child that took things personally.

I'd made Elissa retreat. Alright. Lesson learned. If she wanted to talk about it, she would; she knew where I stood on it now, and there was no need to bring it up again.

I just hoped everything would be back to normal by tomorrow.


	6. Chapter 6

It had taken almost a week and we were dangerously close to Denerim by the time Elissa's ice started to crack. She'd barely spoken to anyone, even though I knew now she actually had a curious streak a mile wide. Before I'd gone and overstepped, she'd been asking everyone all sorts of questions. Usually, conversation was what stopped us all going mad as we trekked over endless fields and down terribly uneven cobbling that all looked the same. I had tried to start some party banter, but every attempt had been stymied by the frosty silence surrounding Elissa.

Everyone had sensed the shift in mood and been quieter, so it was some relief when things started to return to normal. We made camp before we got too close to any big cities – somehow people were actually falling for Loghain's lies about the Wardens being traitors, _really_ – and it was the liveliest I'd ever seen; Leliana was so relieved at the broken tension that she actually convinced Bodahn to give her a lute and was singing along as she played. Sten was unmoved of course, but Morrigan was standing closer to the main firepit than normal and Dal was jumping around Bodahn and Sandal as they clapped along. Elissa was sitting next to her, cross-legged and looking relaxed.

I sat and listened for a while, as Leliana had a lovely voice, before I focused on the tedious task of cleaning my armour. There was so much mud in Ferelden and half of it seemed intent on making its way into my boots.

I was surprised when Elissa came and sat next to me. Surprised and distracted, I didn't realise I was staring at her in what seemed like sudden silence until she glanced at me and then immediately turned away as she picked at her gloves. I resisted the cough building in my throat as I tried to find something else to look at… and realised the camp was empty, with only Dal dozing off across from us. Maker, when had that happened?

"Do you already know how I was recruited?"

Her voice was very quiet, almost timid.

I worried whether she would be upset that I did, but I reminded myself that Elissa was direct because she valued honesty. I nodded solemnly, my eyes on the firepit. "Yes."

She sighed and looked into the shadows curling further around the trees. She was silent for some time. I tried not to fidget. Had Elissa sent everyone away? Had they sensed something amiss and left?

"Howe was my father's oldest friend. He was a sycophant determined to marry me off to his son. Nobody suspected him."

I scrambled for a response. I realized I had not been prepared for this conversation _at all_ , even though I'd instigated it.

 _Maker, what do I say? What do I say to that? Think, what won't upset her… Safe, safe, something safe—_

I latched onto the least dangerous nugget of information.

"I take it he wasn't your type."

Elissa flicked a hand in dismissal, and I had a sudden, powerful image of what she would have been like as Teyrna of Highever.

"He pursued me to improve his standing and was arrogant enough to be convinced that I returned his interest, in spite of the fact that I was only as polite as was required of me, and even then just barely."

Her scowl was thunderous, and I wondered how many years she had had to put up with him. I wondered how stupid he had been to continue when faced with Elissa's displeasure – I didn't doubt that at some point away from their parents and prying eyes, she had made her disinterest clear.

And something told me that before, she had smiled and laughed often, and had reserved her stoic persona for people like Howe.

I made her smile now, even though she tried so hard not to. It felt good, to be able to do something for her… even if it sometimes backfired. I would just have to get better at it.

"So… I guess Howe was working with Loghain." I ventured, cautiously.

"Yes, I suppose so." Her face twisted. "He was clearly just greedy, ambitious, and self-serving. My father should never have trusted him. But nobody suspected anything when Howe's men were 'delayed', and when his men did arrive we were unprepared…"

I sucked in a silent breath and held it as her face slowly crumpled, though she didn't try to hide it as she bit down hard on her lip.

Elissa blinked and looked at me as I laid a hand on her arm, frowning slightly as she examined my face. She turned her head away.

"It was so easy taking them down," She admitted quietly, but there was no shame in her voice, just sadness. "I had already seen what they had done to Oren and Oriana, and I was so full of revenge… every time I found another body, it only got worse. But then… we found father." Her voice caught on the word. She swallowed hard a few times, and when she continued her voice was level. "We could not move him; he was too badly injured. Duncan said that in exchange for ensuring that Howe paid for what he did, that I would become a Warden. I tried to convince mother to come with us, but she said that her place was at my father's side. I could not… I did not save either of them."

Her voice had dwindled to a whisper, her knuckles white as she dug her nails into her trousers, back hunched as she stared downwards. I could feel her arm was tense and shaking. She seemed about to burst, ferociously trying to keep it together.

I needed to do something. I didn't know what to say, or whether or not she would welcome an embrace. In fact, I didn't think I could speak at all. I settled for leaning closer and resting my arm next to her own, our fingers touching.

By the Maker. How did Elissa function? I felt overwhelmed and that was just from seeing her struggle to compose herself.

I watched her try and control her breathing. It hadn't actually seemed real, until now. I'd known from Duncan, known that what he had seen with his own eyes was true… but Elissa had seemed so normal, if a little abrasive at times. It hadn't seemed possible, that something so terrible could have happened to her.

We sat in companionable silence as night truly took over, and the clearing remained mercifully quiet and empty as Elissa started to calm down with deep, even breaths.

Then she lifted her little finger to curl it around mine as she continued staring down at her feet, and my eyes started stinging. I stared at our hands, not convinced she was a real person. How could someone go through so much and be so… so _good_. How could her past be real? It didn't seem compatible with who she was. She wasn't broken, she wasn't bitter. She was… beyond anything I had ever encountered. Beyond anyone.

I felt protective. I wanted to wrap Elissa up and keep her safe from any more harm, make sure nothing else ever happened to upset her.

But I couldn't do that. The best I could do was sit with her and let her know I was here.

"Thank you," I said once the lump in my throat had dissipated enough I could be confident my words wouldn't come out an awful squeak.

She ducked her head and reached up to tuck some escaped hair behind her ear.

"I… wanted to tell someone," Elissa replied, her glance to me quick and uncertain.

"I'm glad you did. We're all we've got right now," I said, and she nodded in agreement.

We sat in silence a while, the fire dimming as we both neglected to add any logs. Crickets started up and the silence was… peaceful.

"Will you take Highever back, once the Blight is over?" I asked her eventually.

"I am Elissa Cousland no longer," She replied, voice as quiet as mine. "I am simply Elissa."

Morrigan's cutting tones had pierced the darkness then, and Elissa gave me a tense little grimace as she broke away and went over to greet the rest of our ragtag group. As I stared after her I realized she must have asked everyone to hunt for provisions to take with us. Leliana had some rabbits, Morrigan was carrying baskets of mushrooms, and Sten had an actual _deer_ across his shoulder.

We hadn't had proper meat in ages. The camp was soon busy as everyone began preparing food, but I was still off-balance and struggling to put forward a semblance of composure. I glanced at Elissa, who didn't seem affected; how did she do it?

Even when Leliana ribbed me and asked if I was even in the land of the living as she handed me some grilled rabbit, I found it hard to focus. I stayed where I was, food barely out of Dal's reach as I wondered what to do. No words came to me, nothing seemed… adequate.

Well, I had to say something. What would I want to hear, if Duncan were here? What would I want him to say to me?

Ah, there it was.

I went over to where Elissa was methodically skinning the deer for its hide. I crouched next to her, and her gaze was steady when she met mine, her previous shyness seemingly overcome.

"You're doing great, you know," I told her, trying to convey the quiet conviction Duncan would have had.

Her hands stilled, and she had a moment of looking intensely vulnerable as she looked away again. She continued staring downwards as she thanked me quietly. I nodded redundantly, and decided it was time for me to retire.

As I lay in my tent, finally in my comfortable nightwear, my thoughts inevitably turned to Elissa.

I thought about how, when I'd first met her, I'd thought her indifferent. Then I'd thought that wearing her emotions on her sleeve just wasn't in her nature. Over time, it had dawned on me that, actually, Elissa made a very deliberate effort to stay in control of herself. I'd noticed how calm and collected she seemed, but now… everything was rewriting itself again as I thought of her holding herself together so tightly she shook. Grief just under the surface, always pushing to break through, and… and it made sense, that all Elissa could do was try not to feel _anything_ , lest she get overwhelmed. Try not to think of anything, lest she break down.

Just hearing from her what had happened had been difficult, and that was for _me_ … I couldn't get her voice out of my head. How it sounded when her pain had really bled through and become real, when she had spoken of not being able to save her parents. She had sounded almost ashamed, as if she should have been able to defy her father's injuries and Howe's entire army.

Oh. _Oh_.

 _Alistair, you fool_. I groaned aloud and slapped my hands to my face as I realized the truth.

She felt _guilty_. She felt _unbearably guilty_ about surviving when her family hadn't. _Of course_ she felt guilty, _of course_ she always got uncomfortable after I managed to make her laugh: she didn't feel like she was _allowed_ to be happy. All she had left was _duty_ , happiness had no place left in her world.

I was actually angry at myself for not really considering how she felt, more focused on myself and how it made _me_ uneasy, as if her distance was _unfair_ somehow.

How many people would actually care about duty and not revenge? Could I claim to be thinking of Ferelden instead of finding Howe and making him pay, if I were in Elissa's shoes? In fact, would I have been anything but angry and resentful that the world had treated me so terribly? That was how I had felt from being sent away for Templar training, and it was _nothing_ compared to what Elissa had gone through. _Nothing_. All the memories she must be carrying around with her of her family, of being loved and loving them in return…

My stomach was churning now, and I was beset by the new and unwelcome experience of feeling so horribly for someone else's tragedy. She just didn't deserve it. Elissa did not deserve what had happened to her at all. If someone she had known before met her now, would they even recognise her?

Those little flashes of her dry sense of humour, her little smiles, the way she played with Dal… Her level head, her inquisitiveness, her tenacity. It made my chest ache to think how wonderful she must have been before Howe had tried to destroy her. I was willing to bet what meagre possessions I had in this world that she had been loving, and loyal, and friendly and teasing. I imagined how she must have played with her nephew and done her sister's hair and teased her brother and exasperated her parents with her leather skirts. I tried to imagine what it must be like to have had a family, an entire family, and to lose that, all at once. I tried to imagine having a half-dozen people that mattered more to me than Duncan, that had always been there in my life, what it would be like to watch them die, to find their bodies. Maker. _Maker_.

I squeezed my fists to my eyes and tried to breathe a little more.

I cared for her. That was normal. We were the last Wardens and we had gone through a lot together these last few weeks. We spent most of our waking hours together and I knew that she had been opening up to me more, and as I'd said to her earlier: when it came down to it, we were the only people left we could really trust. Leliana and Morrigan and Sten were with us for now but all of them were dubious for various reasons. Elissa and I were two halves of a _team_. A team that had to stop a Blight. We were comrades that shared a bond nobody else could possibly understand. Of course I cared about her. Anyone would.


	7. Chapter 7

It was soon after she had been talking to the two dwarves that she slipped over to me, just as I was about to go off for a morning bathe, handing me a carefully crafted Grey Warden hand puppet almost shyly. I blinked, surprised that Bodahn had not only been selling such a thing, but also that she had assumed – correctly – that I would like such a gift.

"Is this for _me_?"

Elissa nodded, wringing her hands for a few seconds before wrenching them apart to hang limply at her sides. "I thought you might like it. It reminded me of you."

"Wow. Thanks! Just—wow!" I just smiled helplessly at her, probably looking like a goofy idiot, but she seemed pleased at my response, flicking her eyes up to me and making a face I had come to know very well was her resisting a smile. After assuring me that I was welcome, she wandered off, helping Leliana with braiding her hair. I was giggling as I brought out my small wooden horse. Too bad I didn't have a griffon.

I couldn't help but feel elated all day as we set off again. We were now going in an arc vaguely following the east coast of Ferelden, bypassing Denerim but looping back a little once we ran into a fellow called Levi Dryden to arrive at Dryden's Soldier's Peak. It seemed sensible to secure the stronghold before we crossed the Bannorn towards the Circle of Magi. We had decided to do Orzammar last simply because travelling through the mountains to reach it took so long as traveling by boat across the lake was out an the northern passage had been closed for years… which meant that we would be visiting Redcliffe before doing the full circle around Lake Calenhad. If all went to plan. I had a feeling it wouldn't.

While I sympathized with Levi wanting to clear his family name, I hoped that the Wardens would gain some use of the tower, because we didn't exactly have time to go around completing personal quests if it didn't help us to fight the ever-encroaching Blight. When we arrived, the fortress, while a little ancient and crumbly in some places, was actually in pretty good condition.

As we continued to discover what had happened at Soldier's Peak, it seemed less and less likely that we would find the evidence Levi wanted… probably because Sophia Dryden _had_ actually led a rebellion. Dryden should never have been made a Warden; her actions were always going to have been too politically charged, her motivations too far from the key tenets of the Wardens.

When we met the ghoul that she had become after her mage's mistake, I knew that it wanted something, but I could also sense it slowly gathering its power. I nudged Elissa slightly to warn her, and saw her head turn slightly in my direction and nod. When "Sophia Dryden" offered to seal the Veil and stop the rest of the demons entering from the Fade, I crossed my arms. She would want something hideous for that, I was sure. When she revealed that she wanted to 'see the world', I was confident that Elissa would shoot her idea down.

I wasn't wrong.

"No deal, demon."

Elissa didn't waste words after that, drawing her swords and leaping forwards. I huffed out a breath as I rushed to help her, sensing Morrigan fall back to the far wall as she prepared her own magic to combat the undead Sophia was summoning. I handled one trying to move into Elissa's left flank while Sten was dealing with two off to the far right, and Dal was already ahead of me, leaping in beside his master and taking down an enemy with a vicious swipe. I took stock after taking down my target and saw that Elissa had still been left fighting Sophia head-on whilst trying to fend off two other undead wardens, surrounded on every side. I saw another skeleton coming towards me from my left, but I found myself unable to take my eyes off Elissa as one of the undead managed to get his sword lodged in her right side as she parried Sophia and covered her left. I heard her cry out in pain and I wasted a few seconds bashing the skull of my own attacking enemy and sweeping my sword at his legs before rushing to her aid. When I arrived next to Elissa, she had put her dagger through Sophia's throat but was collapsed on the floor, clutching her side. I lifted up my shield and an attacking sword bounced off it. I shouted at Dal and Sten, urging them to finish off the last two undead.

Once I heard the distinct sounds of bones shattering, I turned towards Elissa. "Are you alright?" I panted, eyeing the blood covering the right side of her armour. _Stupid question._

"Not too bad," she gasped anyway, wide eyes fixed on the ceiling. She gestured with a limp arm towards her pack, and I nodded as I rummaged around for something to help, trying to ignore the wild thumps of my heart caused by the abject terror I had felt when she had gone down – _again_. I gave her a tonic for the pain, watching her sweat and blood streaked face and noting every grimace as Morrigan fiddled with her wound, trying to get a grip on myself. The sight of her getting injured had frozen me – a rookie mistake that every sort of combat training, Templar included, made a point to correct. Embarrassing.

Elissa met my eyes over the shrew's bent head and gave me a crooked smile as she bent her leg and rested her left arm on it.

Something had changed since that day I had nearly hyperventilated in my tent, and she had been smiling more, her dry humour peeking its head further out of its shell. I'd flattered myself thinking that her sharing the fate of her family with me had been cathartic, but it was probably just that her loss was less raw thanks to time and that we were exhausting ourselves so thoroughly she didn't have time to dwell on it.

"This is what I get for doing the right thing."

"No, 'tis nothing less than you deserve for running in by yourself," Morrigan said acidly.

Sten was standing silently behind us all, a hand on Dal's collar as he kept the warhound in place. He didn't say anything, but I could sense he agreed.

"Oh, please!" Elissa scoffed as she removed her helmet to run a hand through her hair. "You knew I was never going to let it run around stealing from children and tripping up the elderly."

I snorted in amusement before I could stop myself and watched as Elissa glanced at me, chuckled, and then huffed out a breath in pain, lamenting how much laughing hurt her. I turned away and petted Dal absently as I scanned the body of Sophia and realized that she was still wearing the Warden Commander armour. I started down an ill-advised train of thought centring on why Duncan had never worn it, but was distracted by Morrigan's charming voice.

"There, all better. Do you think you'll be able to keep yourself out of trouble?"

Elissa pursed her lips at Morrigan's patronizing tone. "Yes, ma'am, will do." She said flatly as she collected her helmet and stood, and I could tell she was struggling not to show any discomfort because Morrigan was well versed in just about every area except healing, and no doubt she hadn't been able to dull the pain much.

A few minutes and a hazardous bridge later, we were in the study of the mage Avernus, the imbecile who had summoned the demons to aid the Wardens. When Elissa called me over with a terse voice, I looked away from a rather fascinating selection of books to see her standing stiffly holding a crumbling sheaf of parchment, eyes still locked on the text. I joined her and looked over her shoulder.

I felt anger and horror wash over me in equal quantities as I read the entries on what he had done to the Wardens, especially when he was trying to expand the effects of the Taint. Why in the Maker's name would anyone want the Taint to run _stronger_ in their veins?

Elissa finally raised her head and we shared a look of total and immediate understanding. She didn't move as I walked back over to the desk and knocked the vial off the table, feeling satisfied when it shattered into tiny little pieces and the liquid it contained started staining the floor. I glanced back to see Elissa nodding at me solemnly, shoving the book into her pack as Dal started sniffing curiously at the vial. I gently pushed him away, knowing that Morrigan was watching curiously. Sten was just standing there, as usual.

I moved back to Elissa and we agreed to do a quick search of the bookshelves to ensure there was nothing else that we didn't want falling into enemy hands.

While Avernus did have some notebooks detailing his descent into blood magic, and other unsavoury experiments, there was nothing of any immediate concern. When we actually met him – and I wasn't sure why I was surprised that he was still alive – he seemed to want to correct his mistake. I knew that Elissa was going to give him that chance, even though he really needed to do something about the bodies hanging off the walls. At any rate, we needed the Veil closed off.

The battle wasn't too hard, if a little lengthy and tiring. There were only so many times you could swing a heavy sword in one day before your arm just got tired. I had to resort to shoulder-bashing things with my shield.

Once it was over, the only issue left was the ancient mage. Elissa wouldn't agree to help him and then kill him, so I wasn't surprised when she told him to "continue his research… ethically" and warned him that we would be back to check on him. As we left Levi Dryden to get things up and running, I felt like we had done a good day's work.

When we were back at camp and Leliana pestered us for the details, I realized that I had never been left behind at camp. Elissa always made sure I was her the standard group of three, plus Dal who never left her side. I suppose I didn't either, though we had hardly known each other as long as she had had her hound. It had been… what, five weeks now? Six?

I turned to find her, and she was telling Leliana that she hadn't missed much. She fished the accursed journal out of her pack and tossed it onto the fire without pause in her conversation.

What kept Elissa's compass pointing north, I wondered as I sat and poked at the fire with a piece of forgotten kindling. What kept her so sure in her direction, so assured of her convictions?

"So, Alistair…"

Leliana was smirking at me in a way that I did not find reassuring at all.

"Yeees?" I said, as if drawing the word out would help protect me, glancing around to see where Elissa had gone and finding her talking with Sten. She was still a bit miffed at Morrigan – the two women were both too proud to come forward first. It would be a while until one of them made a peace offering.

"Alistair, it's terribly rude to ignore a lady when she speaks to you,"

Leliana sounded amused but I apologised profusely anyway and pretended I didn't feel the heat creeping up towards my cheeks. I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck and cast around for a topic. "So what did you do while we were gone? Did you sew something?"

And she was off. Leliana was the party's seamstress and had become quite skilled at mending all sorts of tears and rips. If it weren't for her we'd all be bumbling about without underclothes, imagine the _chafing_. She'd started doing it as the only one with any skill in it, but she also did it to pass the time now, using her smile on Bodahn until he let her perch on the back of his cart and knit or sew.

Leliana started describing in detail the green leaf pattern she'd decided to embellish one of her dresses with and I nodded along, eyes drifting.

Elissa was now—was she _fighting_ with Sten? I tensed and got ready to leap up, but a second later they broke apart and it became clear Sten was teaching her some sort of hand to hand combat, gesturing to her stance and setting his own feet as she watched and tried to imitate. Then they were at it again, their attacks all far better suited to Sten's hulking form than Elissa's slight one. She would undoubtedly adapt it into her style though.

"Alistair?"

Oh cheesesticks. What had she been saying?

"Um, yes?" I said, looking at Leliana with my eyes wide in panic. She sighed and crossed her arms.

"I was saying, is there anything you would like me to alter? You can't want for only plainclothes, surely."

She was waving her hand at my attire now, with that faintly bemused look I imagined many Orlesians had when beholding the Ferelden masses and their uninspiring outfits.

"I must have missed my letter detailing appropriately formal attire for fighting darkspawn. All this time, I've been suffering along in my perfectly functional clothes without my embroidered doublet—" I broke off as Leliana whacked my shoulder, laughing as she poked her tongue out at me. "No, everything is fine for now," I reassured her.

"Alright, perhaps Elissa would like something done, then," She mused, a fingertip resting on her lip as she too turned her eyes to the spar. "So, what's happening between you and our faithful leader, hmm?"

Wait, what?

I looked back at her and she was doing that smirk again.

"Happening? Nothing's happening."

I sounded a mite too defensive and all too guilty, which was bewildering as I wasn't lying.

"Oh, come now, Alistair. I don't think Wardens are meant to look at their commanders that way."

Had I been looking? I hadn't been looking. I'd been tending the fire and… occasionally taking notice of where Elissa was. That was all.

"Well, what can I say, I'm a terrible Warden," I joked. Self-deprecation, my old friend. I cleared my throat and stabbed the fire as if it were responsible for this conversation. "So, is there a point to this, other than trying to police my eyeballs?"

Blast it, that admitted I _had_ been looking. Leliana was practically glowing with victory as I hung my head and stabbed the fire again.

"You should talk to her, you know."

"About what? The fact that I admire her leadership and impressive double-handed sweeps?" I responded glibly.

Leliana speared me with a look that reminded me of some of the older, sterner ladies of the Chantry. I supposed she'd been trained by them… and that I shouldn't provoke her too much.

"She trusts you," Leliana said simply.

I wanted to joke that that trust was ill-advised, but Leliana's statement seemed too serious for such a treatment.

Instead, I nodded, and hoped she would drop it. She did, and we had just started discussing the merits of asking Morrigan for some mushrooms to add to tonight's meal when Sten and Elissa joined us at the firepit, Dal loping along behind them to curl up next to his mistress once she had settled down cross-legged uncomfortably close to the fire, as she usually did.

"Elissa, would you like me to embroider something for you?" Leliana asked immediately, perhaps hoping that if she started now she might be able to wear Elissa down by the end of the year.

Elissa blinked at her slowly, breathing deep and looking exactly like someone who didn't much need dresses, what with her hair escaping from her braid and her forehead damp with sweat. "Why?"

"Every girl needs pretty dresses! That plain blue one you got in Lothering would look gorgeous with some silver detailing! And, would you look at that, I have some silver thread!" Leliana was beaming, enthused and clearly already planning what she would do to update Elissa's one dress.

"No," Elissa said easily. Leliana's face fell, as did the hand that had been triumphantly presenting her sewing materials.

"But why not?"

"I have no need for dresses." Elissa started undoing her braid and combing through it with her fingers, oblivious to Leliana's distress at her dismissal.

I turned to comfort the disheartened woman. "She can't be trusted with nice dresses anyway Leliana, you should just make some for yourself."

"I can be _trusted_ with them, I just prefer not to wear them," Elissa protested, one eyebrow raised in challenge.

"Such flagrant lies! Need I remind you of what happened last Harvest?"

Elissa scoffed at me bringing up a story she had most certainly told me _in confidence_ and pretended to flick some fiery logs in my direction. I yelped as a burning ember landed on my leg from her efforts and jumped up, hopping on one foot as I tried to brush it off. Leliana was exclaiming at my misfortune and Elissa had stood but instead of helping she was just waving her hands around uselessly. Sten was sitting there with Dal, and he was definitely rolling his eyes on the inside. I shook a fist at him as I passed and he sighed, his huge hand clamping around my leg and holding it still as I finally removed the bit of hot whatever-it-was stuck to me.

Elissa had a hand over her mouth as I gingerly limped back to my spot. I realised after a second she wasn't doing it in horror, but to try and contain her laughter instead.

"Blast it, this isn't funny! You've injured me!" I informed her heatedly, poking through the hole in my trousers to check the skin below. I had a nice little hairless patch there now.

"You shouldn't have provoked me," She rebuked, her eyes shining with her mirth. "That's what you get."

"This is abuse! I demand an adult!"

Leliana giggled as she considered the smoking hole in my clothes. "Well, I shall need to repair these now."

"Let me change into something else then," I said.

"It will only take a minute. Come," She insisted, gesturing that she wanted me to take them off. I shook my head and she folded her arms. "Alistair!"

I looked at Elissa for support but she was nodding in agreement and not even looking as she ran her hands through her hair for knots. "Traitor," I muttered as I stood and tore my boots off, my trousers following as I did the quickest undress of my life and sat back down again, trying to preserve my modesty with my long shirt and thanking the Maker the ember hadn't also ruined my underclothes.

Leliana got straight to work and I didn't even protest as she started using that accursed silver thread and some bright blue fabric to mend the hole. I jumped as I felt Elissa's hair brush across my bare leg and looked across to find she'd scooted across to sit next to me and was inspecting the damage from her attack. Her finger reached out and traced the tender skin, causing goosebumps.

"Ow," I told her pointedly.

She shrugged. "You've had worse."

I'd been about to reply something utterly witty, when I realised why she hadn't just leaned across.

"How's your injury?" I asked, and she looked at me askance.

"It was nothing, really."

I raised an eyebrow.

"No, really," She insisted as she straightened, looking like she was trying very hard not to instinctively slouch over. She rolled her eyes at my meaningful frown and abruptly stood up, lifting her shirt and saying as she turned to present her side "See? No scar."

A little stunned at the nearness of her, I stared at the pink patch of skin now at eye height. No scar, but it looked tender and sore… Elissa wasn't as obviously muscular as I'd imagined – I'd pictured her body much closer to my own. She was softer and rounder, all graceful curves like something on a statue of Andraste.

I realised I hadn't replied and glanced up at her to find her looking back at me, her eyes a little wide. She looked down at herself almost in surprise and dropped her shirt.

"Y-yes, that's all well and good, but does it hurt?" I stammered belatedly as she sat back down.

"It's fine," She said again, folding her hands in her lap and looking at them.

"There, all done!" Leliana exclaimed as she stood up and presented my new trousers to me in a flourish.

I'd actually almost forgotten about my state of undress. Almost.

"Fabulous," I informed her as I snatched them out of her hands and stood to pull them on, not bothering with tying the laces at the top nor with my boots. I didn't hide my sigh of relief as I flopped back down. When I looked up again, Elissa had vanished from the firepit.

"You see?"

I turned towards Leliana. "What?" I asked, frowning in confusion.

She sent me a look that was clearly meant to be charged with lots of _meaning_ and glided off towards the other side of camp and Elissa's tent, her materials in tow.

I looked at Sten. He stared back at me impassively. I looked at Dal and he huffed and rolled onto his back.

"What?" I asked the firepit at large. Sten shrugged.

"…But what about dinner?"


	8. Chapter 8

Elissa was looking a lot like a very young woman shoved head-first into a world she barely understood.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, eventually your body won't be able to take the Taint. Most Wardens go into the Deep Roads for one final battle rather than just… wait. It's tradition."

For once, I could almost read her like a book. She was looking at me but it wasn't really focused like normal, she seemed almost… dazed. She stared blankly through me. She looked like I'd just punched her in the gut.

One thing was for sure, she hadn't had a clue about the effects of the Taint. I felt responsible and bitter that it had happened this way. If I had thought about it more, I probably would have realised how unlikely it was that she knew all she should. I knew that Duncan had expected to survive Ostagar, had expected to be able to sit down with Elissa and explain to her, tell her how his time was coming fast, just as hers would, and that it was not so awful. And I should have known that he never had the chance.

I should have known.

Maker, what was _wrong_ with me. I could excuse myself for those first few days after Ostagar, maybe, but all the days since? Had I been so wrapped up in myself I hadn't considered Elissa at all?

I felt a sudden worry that Elissa was under a lot more strain than I realised. She seemed so capable, so sure, a natural leader. But was I seeing what I wanted to see? I had ignored her hidden grief. Did I want someone else to know what to do, because I was terrified of having to take lead? Was she actually really struggling, but I was ignoring it because deep down I wanted her to be handling it fine, for my own peace of mind? I tried to sort through my memories, think of moments when she'd showed strain, and all I could think about was her haunted face sitting by the campfire, how sometimes she just closed her eyes and sat, looking so tired, how everyone set up camp around her without a word. Like a terrible whisper, I heard her words in the back of my mind about her family and Highever, and I felt so ashamed. Even if she was handling it fine, she shouldn't have to shoulder the burden as much as she had. I'd called ourselves a team but I hadn't been pulling my weight.

"Thirty years… Does the archdemon affect this?"

I brought myself back to the present.

"As far as we know, it only affects the dreams. Elissa, I'm so sorry; I should have said…" I reached out for her before thinking better of it, and she didn't react for a long while as she looked down at my hand on her arm like it was a fish that had jumped out of the lake. Scalded, I dropped my arm and stepped back, running my hands over my face and trying to think of what to say. I opened my eyes to see her turn away and wrap her arms around herself tightly, taking in a breath as she examined our surroundings: the clearing we were in, a few dozen metres from camp in the centre of the Bannorn; the little flowers growing around the tree trunks; the beautiful starry sky; the nearby river... the overturned wagon where we had encountered bandits.

The path we were taking across Ferelden to Lake Calenhad was exhausting; it was the middle of summer now and the humidity was stifling. We had been setting up camp before the sun had truly set for a few nights now. We had stayed behind to clear up the mess while the rest of the party set up our tents and built the fire. It had seemed like the best time to broach the subject; no one around and no pressure to be getting anywhere.

I had been so short-sighted to have expected it to be a touch-up of what she already knew, rather than telling her everything for the first time. Even after Soldier's Peak, and so much talk with Elissa about Wardens and with how conspicuously basic her questions about the affects of the Taint had been… I was such a fool. A selfish, selfish fool. I almost wanted Morrigan to appear and chastise me.

"Alistair." My name brought me out of my thoughts, and Elissa was watching me expressionlessly, but there was something lurking in her gaze that put me on edge. I had seen Elissa when she was dangerous, and I knew the signs. "Is there anything else?"

I examined the ground as I thought and tried to convince myself it was to help things come to me rather than to avoid her gaze.

"The only thing I can think of is how Wardens find it hard to have children."

Her lips flattened grimly.

"How hard?"

I shrugged; a gesture of helplessness rather than indifference.

"All the Wardens I knew with children had them before their Joining. I don't think it's impossible, but it might also depend on the amount of time you've had the Taint in you. They just warn us to not get our hopes up, not that many Wardens want to have children anyway…"

She looked at me a few seconds, then walked away. She sat on the nearby log and put her head in her hands.

I stood in the middle of the clearing, at a total loss, less sure than I had ever been.

Was she _crying_? No, no... This was not right. She didn't cry. Elissa did not cry. She was an unstoppable force, and she'd been forged in fire. Nothing could break her. _Nothing_. Except… maybe she'd always really wanted children. I wanted a family, didn't I? Hadn't I been crushed to hear that I would have to sacrifice that?

I took a hesitant step forward. Would she want my comfort? She'd moved away from me, would she rather I just left? I didn't… I didn't know, I'd never seen her like this before. I didn't know what would make her feel better. Was I brave enough to ask?

"Elissa, would you… like me to leave?"

I asked her eventually, helplessly. I waited, but she didn't respond, and I hesitantly took that as a no. I tried to be quiet as I stepped towards her, not because I thought I could catch her unawares, but because this seemed a fragile moment that any noise would shatter, just like that amulet I had had all those years ago.

Sitting beside her on the log, I gently placed a hand on her shoulder. I waited, and she didn't shrug it off, so I carefully crouched and pulled her to me. It was awkward, her with her hands still on her face and both of us wearing armour as I continued to anxiously wait and try not to lose my balance.

"I had a plan, you know." She told me quietly. Her breath was warm on my collarbone. "The last thing I said to my parents was that I loved them and that I would try to live as they had taught me, that I would try to make them proud, that their sacrifice would not be in vain. I promised to live, to become a Grey Warden and do what is right. That was the first part of the plan."

She lifted her head now, but she didn't look at me. Her eyes were on the trees, and I leaned back but stayed where I was, hovering, my arms gently resting around hers, feeling unable to look away.

"Then my plan was to collect our allies with the treaties, unite the Bannorn against Loghain to stop this Civil War, stop the Blight and kill the Archdemon. And then, once that was over, rebuild. Not just the Grey Wardens, but my… my family name. I am the last Cousland to carry on the family line, and even if I cannot be Teyrna, even if Highever is lost to us, I refuse to let the Couslands end this way. I cannot let Howe get away with destroying us. Or at least, I thought I couldn't..."

She looked at me, and the weight of what she was saying hit me. The weight of what she had sacrificed to become a Warden, without knowing, without having a real choice.

I had almost forgotten that she'd never gotten news of her brother. That it was… that by now she wouldn't have much hope left.

"Elissa..." I started, then my mouth closed as I failed to think of a way to say what I wanted to: how badly I felt for her, everything, that Duncan should have told her, that she should have known, should have been given a real choice, that I was so _so_ sorry for not thinking about her sooner, how stupid I had been… My guilt and shock at hearing her speak in such detail about her parents had rendered me incapable of coherency. Her pain was still so difficult to approach even as an outsider, and it humbled me once again.

Elissa began to cry. She cried silently, her eyes closed tight as tears leaked through anyway and her face reddened. Her fists were clenched and shaking, her lip bleeding where she'd bitten it too hard.

 _I'm so sorry_ , I thought desperately, frantically, knowing it wouldn't help. Apologies were useless. _Useless_. _But I'm so, so sorry._

She drew in a long breath, and then pulled herself from my grasp and stood, looking away from me and into the treeline. I had finally lost my balance and was scrambling to my feet when she spoke, in a strangled voice that I wished never to hear again.

"You could not have foreseen what this meant to me. I know that, but plea—" she cut herself off and tried again. "I would ask that you give me some space."

Without a further look at me she walked out of the clearing back towards camp. I stared after her, wishing I could run and fall to my knees and beg, apologise over and over again, but loathe to do anything other than what she had asked. So instead I stood there and watched her leave, trying to convince myself I'd had my chance to try and comfort her in that weakest moment, that she knew what was best.

I kicked the log viciously, my hands pulling at my hair. I hung my head and sighed in shame as I traipsed over to where I had piled my pack and helmet, picking them up and then dropping them again. I felt directionless.

All those times I had wondered what was holding her together. I had been wondering since I first met her, already knowing she should have been a broken woman. And slowly, after seeing her wake from her Joining and then betrayal and injuries at Ostagar, I'd realised that what drove her was something like pure determination. She had goals, she had things she needed to see done, and she did more than just cling to them. She had devoted herself wholeheartedly to her responsibilities, and as the weeks had passed I had only respected her more for it.

Now, I'd turned her plans upside-down. I'd torn them apart in front of her eyes.

She had needed to believe that we could do this, that what we were trying to do was achievable, that we could stop this Blight and make Loghain pay, so that she could then turn to her other duties, her more personal ones. But now she knew that even if she smote Howe into less than a stain, she would likely fail in what she promised her parents, to not let this be the end of the Couslands. She would fail in the most important of rebellions against what he had tried to do, the line he had tried to erase.

How was she supposed to be so set, so sure in her course now? And it was more than just her, everyone else relied on her so much, too, to know what to do and where to go, to make all those choices without faltering.

Cursing, I forced myself to admit that I was still selfish enough to be thinking about how this would affect us as all. Throughout the whole agonising conversation, I had found myself thinking ahead and dreading the look on her face when she found out I was Alistair Theirin, and not simply Alistair. Now I hated the thought of having kept another secret from her, couldn't bear to fail her. I had to tell her, even if she no longer wanted nothing to do with me.

Most people would probably just call me a fool, taking for granted that Elissa and I would be close. That it would always be that way.

I'd never had a real friend before, someone I could talk to without fear of judgement, without fear for how they'd look at me if I were honest and said what I really thought… and now I'd lost her.

I kicked the log again, vicious curses I'd never say out loud running through my head and threatening to spill past my lips.

I wandered around the clearing, almost pacing, but more just moving my feet so that I didn't start really breaking things and trying to beat up trees. Eventually I felt like I had given Elissa enough time to retire to her tent and avoid me. I felt choked as I put my pack on and collected a few logs for the fire, but I reminded myself that Elissa should be my focus now. Whatever she needed, anything to ease her task, I would do it. I returned to camp where all was silent; despite how the sun's rays were only just leaving the sky, only Leliana remained awake.

She didn't look angry at me, just upset.

"Explain, Alistair."

That Leliana had noticed anything was testament to how upset Elissa was. I dumped the wood on the fire and let myself tumble onto the ground next to her.

"Explain what?"

Playing dumb was still such a second nature to me, I did it even when I didn't really mean to.

"I can tell when a woman is near tears. I can't imagine what you did to make our leader cry."

I took off a heavy plate gauntlet bartered from Levi and rubbed another hand over my face, feeling tired.

"I can't explain it to you. But it's not what I did; it's what I didn't do."

I wondered if she thought I had rejected Elissa, and I nearly laughed at the irony.

"What didn't you do?"

I sighed heavily and turned my head to look at the bard, whose face was fierce in the light of the fire. I knew she was loyal to Elissa, as were we all, to some extent or another, and that as a friend, she cared about her welfare almost as much as I did.

"Grey Warden matters."

Leliana looked curious and unsatisfied but she let the subject drop as we both fell silent and watched the flames eating the wood. I didn't move until it was fully dark, stretching out one leg and resting an arm on it. After a while I spoke.

"I will tell you that becoming a Warden means paying heavy prices, and that Elissa wasn't entirely aware of the sacrifices she would be making because of what happened at Ostagar." My tone was short and to the point.

"And you thought she knew."

Leliana sounded as exhausted as I felt, and she rose to her feet swiftly and turned her head towards me. I didn't look up, but I could see her shadowed face in my peripheral vision. I was gratified that she didn't think I had deliberately concealed anything from Elissa, but it was small comfort.

"She will forgive you, I think. She knows that you do not wish her ill."

Leliana couldn't really know what she was talking about because I had told her so little, but as I watched her back as she ducked into her tent, I realised that her words had lifted my mood ever so slightly, and that I almost dared to believe her. A man can hope.


	9. Chapter 9

oOo

I was lucky that the last few days had been steady travelling, because her taking a scouting party out without me in it would have been a slap to the face. As it was, I hadn't been _avoiding_ her, but I had been sticking to walking near the carriage rather than taking point with her, making it obvious that being near me was her choice. I had waited patiently as we finished the journey to Lake Calenhad, which had been a little longer than intended as we had had to veer further northwards off the roads and into dense forest to avoid the now likely overrun Lothering. I had been deliberately keeping some distance whilst not being out of sight completely. By now I was desperate to have her talk to me, even if it was just to scream at me. Anything was better than this.

We were having one night of relative luxury as we stayed at a shabby tavern right on the precipice bordering the lake. Sten and I were sharing a room, as were Leliana, Morrigan and Elissa. Dal had been told he had to stay outside; I doubted very much that would happen.

I was nursing a drink as we waited for our food and staring into its depths—I couldn't deny it was a moody, brooding stare—wondering what Elissa was thinking. She was alone in her room, and I had the feeling she'd scared even Morrigan out of it as the mage had decided to join us for the meal.

What did I do? It had been three days. It had felt like eternity; only now did I realise how much of my time I spent simply talking to Elissa and being silly, ridiculously at ease. The tension between us and sudden lack of release for our stress had made us both irritable and short-tempered, and if I hadn't been so concerned about Elissa I would have cringed at how obvious it was to everyone else.

I sighed and dragged a hand through my hair, looking up to find Morrigan scowling at me in distaste.

"What?" I snapped, not in the mood right now for one of her scathing comments. I clenched my fists around my tankard and told myself that I just needed to keep quiet.

"Alistair, if you spend one more day sulking like a child I will call down eagles to _swoop_ upon on you and tear your flesh from your bones. How does that sound?" She was speaking in about as sweet a tone as she ever did, the one that came out when she was actually really angry.

I grunted irritably.

Leliana intervened, leaning forward conspiratorially. "You must go to her, Alistair", she urged me. I looked at her like she'd just grown a second head.

I didn't even bother to deny what we were talking about. I just shook my head. If Elissa hadn't come to me, then she didn't want to speak to me. I would respect that.

"Parshaara. You are being a coward."

Now I really was staring. Even _Sten_ was ganging up on me now.

"She needs space."

"A convenient excuse," Sten said gravely, looking down his nose at me severely before he took a swig of his drink. He didn't wince at the taste of days old swill, which was potentially more impressive than anything else he'd done so far.

"You need to show her you care! Put the effort in!" Leliana implored me passionately, flapping her hands as she tried to propel me back to the room with hand gestures.

"Of course I care! She knows that—"

"Just go already!" Morrigan exclaimed as she crossed her arms and looked away, clearly hoping that would be the end of it.

I looked at them all for a few seconds. Then it dawned on me why they were all in such total agreement that I needed to go to her – because Elissa was proud, and because she didn't back down.

Maker. I'd been leaving her to do all the work again. I knew her better than this.

I downed my drink—well I tried to, I got a few mouthfuls in before I decided to just leave it. I headed down the corridor and ignored the shouts of encouragement coming from behind me. When I got to the bedroom door I forced myself to knock on it immediately, before doubts could begin to creep in.

Fidgeting, I waited. I tried to fiddle with my gauntlets but I'd left all my armour in the room. I ended up squeezing my fingers together so hard they began to hurt.

The door opened. Elissa looked… surprised. And tense.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came to mind. I cleared my throat and tried again, staring at Elissa's feet. She didn't have shoes on. She had such small toes. And toenails. Small feet all around, really.

"I'd like to talk to you, if that's alright," I said, my voice low as if she were game that could be scared away.

She was silent and it was too torturous not to know what she was thinking. My gaze was drawn back up. She was looking at me, and she waited until I met her eyes before she nodded.

Elissa disappeared from the doorway and I froze on the threshold, wondering whether I was supposed to follow her in. I didn't have long for my discomfort with the idea to build as she soon reappeared, this time with shoes.

She led me out of the back door and onto some questionably secure decking overlooking the water. She was silent as she lowered herself onto the edge of the wooden platform, fearlessly dangling her legs over the edge as she looked out. I seated myself as I immediately realised why nobody else was out here: midges. And the stink of fish, but growing up in Redcliffe had made me pretty immune to that.

Elissa wasn't looking at me, and I waited a few beats before realising that it was my job to start crossing this bridge. I wanted to smack myself in the forehead. I really had to learn some initiative.

 _Just be honest._

"Elissa, I'm sorry. I know that won't help things much, but I really am sorry about how hard this has been. I need you to know that." I blew out a breath. Step one over. "I also want you to know that… I know I've been leaving too much to you. It isn't right that I've been letting you make all the hard decisions. I won't leave you to carry this alone anymore. I've always thought of us as a team and I need to earn that; I've been relying on you like everyone else has, but from now on, you can rely on me, too."

It was actually a relief to say that. I looked out at the lake and tried to use it to centre myself. The seconds ticked by, as did my hope that things could be repaired.

"I do not want to be angry with you, Alistair."

She sounded very tired, almost resigned. I swallowed, for once completely unsure what to say. She didn't look at me as she waited for a response.

"You're right to be. I should have told you sooner."

She made a jerky movement. "Why? It is not like you could have done anything," she replied, voice flat.

"I know, but I wish I could. I know that's little comfort, but I really do." I said, throat feeling all closed up.

Was it always this hard to tell someone you cared? Really, truly _cared_?

She sighed and ran her hands through her hair, which was, for once, completely loose. She looked like she should have been relaxing with a book, but instead she was clearly trying to hold back her agitation.

"I told you once that I was Elissa Cousland no longer. And I am not. I am a Grey Warden now. I have no title, no land. I will kill Howe, but I cannot reclaim Highever."

I tried to ignore how the re-emergence of the polite, regal way of speaking Elissa had lost weeks ago saddened me.

"Everything was taken from you. Nobody can just accept that," I said quietly.

Elissa sighed deeply, and ran her hands over her face. "I just hope Fergus is alive." Her desperate hope made me ache.

"As do I," I said with as much sincerity as I could pack into three words. Elissa absolutely deserved to have her brother be alive and well. "You're a fighter. Howe hasn't beaten you. He'll get what's coming to him, you'll make sure of that."

She looked at me now, examining me. I hoped that she found what she was looking for; that I'd be right next to her as she fought back. That I believed in her.

And then she shuffled closer and slipped a hand over mine and I was more surprised, more pleased, than I had ever been in my life. I stared at her, and her eyes were softer now.

"Thank you, Alistair," she said.

"Of course," I replied as I stared down at our linked hands. Her skin was too soft for someone who handled weapons all day.

"Hypocritical, really... I resisted an arranged marriage for years, I certainly did not want to be a mother." She let out a breath and looked at our hands. "Fergus is the heir. If he is alive, he will see to to continuing our line. My duty, and what my parents asked of me, is to be a Grey Warden. And if the Cousland line is lost, then it will just one of many things lost during this Blight."

She glanced up at me and held my gaze. I squeezed her hand gently. I didn't know how to tell her how proud I was of her, how she would always have been a rare and wonderful thing, even without the Blight looming over us and responsibility settled heavily on our –her– shoulders. What was truly gobsmacking, was that we had been so hastily thrown together and that we fit together so well, that it felt right despite the fact it was sheer luck we had both survived...

"You're an amazing woman."

The whisper slipped out of my mouth without my full consent, but Elissa leaned over and kissed me gently on the cheek without missing a beat. She rested her forehead on my shoulder and I could feel her breath through my thin shirt. I could smell her, sweet and musky at once.

"Thank you."

Then she was gone, rising to her feet and walking over to re-enter the tavern, leaving me to try and control the heat rising to my cheeks. I stared out at Lake Calenhad, and I probably should have been thinking about how close I was to Redcliffe, but instead I couldn't stop thinking about the tingling in my left cheek that I desperately wanted to rub.

It took a while for anything to penetrate my dazed thoughts about Elissa's lips having touched my skin. I cursed myself as I realised I had forgotten to tell Elissa about my father as I'd promised I would. Tomorrow, I resolved. It was late and that had been quite enough heart-baring for one day.

Sleep that night was quite hard to come by, but at some point the feel of an actual albeit lumpy bed must have lured me into it because the next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes and sunlight was streaming in through the window.

At breakfast the tension had dissolved, but Elissa was still quieter than usual. Everyone was eager to get back on the road and finally get to Redcliffe. Leliana spent her time looking between Elissa and me, but I shied away and tried to pretend her interest in what had happened wasn't really happening.

Waiting for the right moment for this was far trickier. The entire day passed, and I eventually decided that I needed to stop being a coward, and that I wanted some privacy for this. Once we had set up the camp in a clearing near the lake and had supper, the group had splintered the way it usually did off to different places. I caught Elissa's eye deliberately where she was talking with Leliana and gestured with my hand before heading off into the surrounding woods. I followed the sound of gentle waves until I found the lake, which was, as predicted, eerily empty of the usual ferries and boats. There I leaned against a tree and waited for her, trying to convince myself this was going to go as well as the last time.

"Arranging a secret tryst, are we, Alistair?"

I scowled heavily and eyed Morrigan warily as she stepped out into the open, looking as predatory as anything. I was too tired, too nervous and on edge, to deal with her right now.

"No, Morrigan." I sighed slightly and looked away from her. Was she ever going to find some real clothes?

"Oh? No suspicious or dim-witted reply for me, then?"

"Look," I turned towards her slowly, reluctantly. " _My_ main goal in life is not to bait everyone as much as I possibly can. You may get a kick out of looking down your nose at me and judging me endlessly, but we actually have to work together as a team. As ex-Templar and apostate, that's difficult enough, so let's try not to make it harder." Morrigan looked a little surprised before she covered it up with a sneering curl in her lip. I ran a hand through my hair irritably as I turned away again. I wasn't doing this right. I sucked in a breath and then tried again. "I don't enjoy quarrelling with anyone, even you, so just keep your comments about me to yourself and I'll do the same and that'll do fine."

Sure, I hadn't been very accommodating the first time we'd met, nor in the first few days of our travels, but I had long stopped bothering with trying to annoy her. The witch's open dislike for me, however, was as strong as ever. And boy did she love letting the world know that.

The woman was silent for a long few seconds, and the curiosity to peek at her face was almost overwhelming, but I stubbornly kept my eyes turned in the direction of the water.

"As you wish." She said eventually, stoically, and when I caved in and looked, Morrigan had already melted into the shadows. I shifted ever so slightly, uncomfortable with the thought that she might eavesdrop on us, but I didn't hear anything and a second later Elissa was ducking under a branch and looking at me expectantly.

"Did I imagine it or did you actually want me to follow you here?"

I grimaced and said slowly: "I need to tell you something."

Elissa moved to stand closer to me as she looked around, humming slightly as she sat down on the rocky edge. I settled myself next to her.

"Look, I know it's a while before we get to Redcliffe, and knowing our luck something will hold us up at the Circle, but there's something you need to know."

She tilted her head, eyes a little hooded as she watched me. I tried not to notice the wind in her loose curls. I wondered if it was curly from the elaborate braided bun she usually kept it in or if it was naturally that way. "Is this about how you were raised, then? Was it by Arl Eamon?"

She _was_ the perceptive one, wasn't she?

"Sort of..." I took a deep breath and it came out in a garbled rush. "I'm a bastard. The fatherless kind. And my father was... well, he was King Maric, which makes Cailan my, well, half-brother."

Elissa sat back slowly and looked at me, leaning back on her hands. Her face was quite blank, but she certainly didn't seem angry, so I tentatively kept my gaze on her.

I wondered if she already knew.

"And who was your mother?"

"A serving lady at the castle. Eamon agreed to take me in and raise me, but when he married Lady Isolde, she couldn't let go of the rumours that I was _his_ bastard son. They weren't true, of course, and I look nothing like him, but that didn't stop them. So that's why I was packed off to the nearest monastery at age ten. But Isolde had made sure by then that Redcliffe Castle was no longer a home to me; she despised me."

I usually had an issue with not knowing when to stop blabbering: I was a terrible liar because I always went overboard on the fiction. I'd never struggled with just letting the truth pour out.

Elissa's eyes were on the sky. "That's a horrible thing to do to a child," she said softly. I shrugged, but the thought of her caring actually made me feel something... odd.

"She probably wondered if the talk was true, herself. I can't say I blame her."

"But you did back then, I guess." Her bare hand searched for mine, and for a while I didn't say anything while we both looked out at the view. She started tracing patterns over my knuckles.

After a few moments I was able to gather my scattered senses enough to reply.

"Of course I did. As I said, I felt like I had been thrown away... Eamon tried to visit me a couple of times, but I refused to talk to him, so eventually he stopped coming." I shook my head sadly. "I remember the day he sent me away. I had an amulet with Andraste's symbol on it, the only thing I had of my mother's, and I was so angry I threw it at the wall and it shattered. Stupid, _stupid_ thing to do."

"You were young, Alistair, and we've all made mistakes."

I nodded, accepting her words.

"So... you aren't angry that I kept this from you?"

The corner of her mouth quirked up as she glanced up at me from drawing a sun on my palm. "You realise you're the only one who knows about my being a Teyrn's daughter. Leliana can tell I'm a noble, but that's as far as it goes."

I looked at her in surprise. "I... didn't know that."

She shrugged as she tucked a strand of her long hair behind her ear. "I can understand how it would bring you nothing but grief, and I can definitely empathize with people treating you differently for it. You'll always be Alistair to me, but thank you for confiding in me."

I was going a little red as I mumbled "It just didn't seem right to keep secrets from you... but you're welcome."

We ended up staying where we were, sitting together as the time closed in on midnight. Elissa never let go of my hand. Her presence was doing funny things to me, and I tried to think of things to say but my mind was blank. I just couldn't think while she was sitting so close to me, holding my hand, and I wondered if it was normal to be excited and scared and nervous all at once just because someone was _near you_.

She turned to me, and the moonlight was lighting up her face and making her eyes almost luminous. The women of Highever must have hated Elissa; there can't have been a prettier woman living there.

"Tell me about the other Grey Wardens. How many of you were there?"

"Not many compared to other places, but a good three dozen. As you know, I was the junior member, only a Warden for six months after leaving the Chantry, but everyone was like family. We were kin, connected by the bond of having undergone the Joining and the Taint. I remember, there was this one Warden from the Anderfels—Gregor, Grigor?—who could drink like a _fish_. He bet that he could out-drink any of us, and that he would drink a pint for every half-pint we had... Duncan walked in on us later and we'd all passed out, except for Grigor, who was still drinking! We found it hilarious the next morning despite our hangovers, but Duncan had almost injured himself from laughing..."

My words trailed off as I abruptly realised I had absolutely nothing of Duncan's... nothing to symbolise the man who had been like a father figure to me, even. He might as well not have existed—he was gone, nothing left behind. He would be forgotten, ignored.

"What's wrong, Alistair?"

Her other hand came to rest on my arm, but I couldn't look up. My eyes focused on her fingers and I realised how tiny her hand actually was when it was against mine. I spent a little while arranging her hand so that I could press our palms together and see that her fingers only reached halfway between my last two joints. I curled the tips of my fingers around hers a little as I spoke. I could feel the little calluses on her palm.

"I just realised that I have nothing to remember him by... It's silly, I know."

I glanced up to see that Elissa was shaking her head vigorously, though her eyes were on our hands.

Maker, did this mean what I thought it did? Or was I just an inexperienced fool?

Maybe Elissa liked looking at hands?

"No, it's not. I completely understand."

"Do you... I mean, do you have anything...?"

"Only my family sword. And the shield that I gave you when you lost yours at the Tower."

I gaped at her. "Elissa, you should have said! I can't use that!" Surely it bore the family crest? How hadn't I realised that it bore her family crest? Was I really so unobservant?

She looked at me oddly. "Of course you can, Alistair, you have been for weeks. I don't use it, and you're putting it to much better use."

"Well, if you're sure... Thank you, in that case. I can't believe I didn't realise..."

"Don't use it any less now," she warned, raising an eyebrow. "I'd rather it broke in half than have you lose an arm."

"Or my good looks?" I quipped, and Elissa made a funny little face.

"Yes, or your good looks." Despite how it was a joke, there was something in her voice as she looked away. Elissa's face suddenly lit up before she started looking very- did she look _mischievous_? That was new. "So, if you were raised at the Chantry, have you never..."

I knew what she meant immediately, I wasn't _that_ naïve, but I decided to tease her. And avoid the question.

"Never...? Never what? Had a good pair of shoes?"

"You know what I mean..." She was going red now, and something in me started to do an excited little dance. Or maybe the swill from earlier was rising, it was hard to tell.

"I'm not sure I do. Have I never... seen a basilisk? Ate jellied ham? Have I never licked a lamppost in winter?"

"Now you're just making fun of me!" She accused, but there was a smile she was trying to suppress and I was defenceless against my own.

"Make fun of you, dear lady? Perish the thought!" I exclaimed as she smothered a giggle. I raised a suggestive eyebrow. "But tell me, have _you_ ever licked a lamppost in winter?"

She actually bit her lip as her eyes swept past me. "No, I've never licked a lamppost in winter." Her eyes were back on me, watching my reaction.

She cared what I thought. _Holy Maker._

"Good, I hear it's quite painful. One of the initiates was dared to do it once. There was lots of pointing and laughing... Oh, the _humanity_." Elissa started laughing, and I found myself smiling, not just at her amusement but at the knowledge that I was the only one I had ever heard her laugh for. "But I too have never done it... That. Not that I haven't ever thought about it, of course, but you know..." I looked down, hoping that answer wasn't a disappointment.

"You've never had the chance?" Elissa guessed shrewdly.

"Well the Chantry isn't really a place for rambunctious boys... I was taught to be a gentleman, especially in the presence of beautiful women such as yourself. That's not so bad, is it?" I couldn't help but worry.

"No, it's not." She said, smiling a little as I inwardly sighed in relief, when she blinked. "Beautiful?"

"Oh, come on, you're beautiful and you _know_ it! You're ravishing, resourceful, and all those other things you'd hit me for not saying."

"I would never hit you."

And there was such a serious gravity in her voice that I found myself responding in kind.

"Nor I you."

We sat in companionable silence for a few moments while I wondered if it was cowardly of me to want to run back into my tent and think all this over. "Come on," I said, standing and stretching before offering her my hand. "Let's get back to camp, lest your risqué talk make my ears blush!"

"It is late, isn't it?" She pointed out as she took my hand. She looked up at me as we started walking back. "I enjoy your company, Alistair."

I took a second to reassure myself I wasn't dreaming. Then I reached for her hand and wrapped my little finger around hers.

"And I enjoy yours, Elissa."

oOo


	10. Chapter 10

oOo

I woke and spent quite some time staring at the ceiling of my tent, worrying over whether I would see anyone I remembered from my Templar training and feeling stressed and nervous. Faces of other initiates I had trained with –Jacob, Alexander, Oscar– and of the Templars who had taught me –Griffiths, Samson– were running through my mind. Templars always went to Kinloch Hold at some point during their rotation, so the chances that I would see someone I knew weren't _that_ abysmal. It wasn't like it had even been that long – they would recognise me.

What was wrong with me? Was I ashamed? Was I afraid of what they would say when they saw me?

It took me a few minutes, but I eventually realised that I was nervous about the idea of meeting someone who had known me before I had become a Warden. As if they could point and laugh and make me look a fool, because they'd known me back in the days when I'd been so desperate to escape the life I had and blatant about it, when whispers had followed me wherever I went about _that bastard_ , when nothing I ever did had overcome that – Alistair the Bastard had been Alisatair the Bastard regardless of whether he pulled pranks or prayed dutifully or tried to make people laugh or kept to himself. I'd tried so _hard_ to belong there, to make friends, and it had always been for naught.

I still felt a little bit like an imposter. I'd always felt like a fraud; blood of kings but no prince, Templar training but no devout believer. Even as a Warden I had known that… if people knew who I really was, everything would be different. People would treat me differently. So I'd tried hard, again, to be _just Alistair_. The other Wardens had let me – it wasn't like I was the only one who didn't like to speak of their past – and I had actually felt like I belonged, but it was always tempered with that knowledge that I wasn't _just Alistair_.

I scoffed at myself, running a hand through my hair. I'd already faced my fears and told Elissa about my parentage. She knew who I was and accepted me regardless, and I shouldn't care what anyone else thought. I wouldn't.

Eventually I forced myself to roll out of bed. I knew that we would no doubt have some problem or another with the mages, but as always, we would deal with it and forge ahead.

What had seemed like an impossible task was starting to seem manageable. Even in the face of everything, the future was looking quite bright, and I was even more cheerful than normal as we packed up and headed towards the docks. Even Elissa talking with Sten privately didn't put a dent in my humour... even though Elissa looked a little concerned when they returned.

Though hearing about the trouble at the Tower did. My heart sank as I realised something very wrong must have happened for the Knight-Commander to be so severe in his actions. The Tower was considered unsafe: that meant that the mages were no longer safe to be around. Maybe a Harrowing had gone wrong, maybe there was a rogue mage, maybe a training exercise had gone amiss... I hoped it was the latter.

But as these were just suspicions, I limited myself to a quiet word to Elissa saying I would take point on this one, complete with a worried look, as we made our way down to the docks from the Spoiled Princess. She raised her eyebrows and nodded.

When we arrived, a young, nervous Templar was awaiting us.

"You're not looking to get across to the tower, are you? Because I have strict orders not to let _anyone_ pass!"

"Now, now, pleasantries first. What's your name, young ser?" I asked him, trying not to laugh at how desperate he was to seem in control.

"Err—I—Carroll, ser."

"Nice to meet you, Carroll. I'm Alistair, a Grey Warden. I'm here for aid against the Blight."

"Oh, a Grey Warden? Prove it," He scoffed.

I raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "I do have some official Warden documents, but they're not the kind of thing you whip out to impress a rookie Templar barely a month past his Vigil."

The young lad startled, and I felt inordinately pleased at myself at how I'd hit the mark. It made sense for the least experienced Templar to be stuck out here on boat-guarding duty instead of something actually useful.

Carroll stuck his chin up in the air and crossed his arms defiantly.

"I don't believe it. Go on, prove you're a Grey Warden. Kill some darkspawn or something!"

I sighed. "There aren't any here. I don't care about proving I'm a Warden, I care about getting across the lake. So tell me how I can achieve that."

"Well…" He shifted, looking around, and then his eyes caught on Elissa. " _She_ doesn't need to go to the tower, does she?" He turned to her. "It gets terribly lonely out here, you know… You could keep me company while your friends went across the lake, I know a place-"

I stepped forward and gripped the young man's shoulder with perhaps more force than necessary.

"Another word, and I will _throw you_ into the lake and watch you sink to the bottom," I said, glowering down at him.

"Ah. Perhaps not..." He quailed, backing away an involuntary step or two down the pier.

I breathed deeply and told myself throttling him was completely counter-productive, when I heard Morrigan snort with laughter behind me.

"Just take us across the lake, Templar."

When the man told us (stammering) that he couldn't carry more than three people in the boat, I turned towards the group. "Elissa, Fang and I will go. The rest of you should stay at the inn. Hopefully we'll return within the day. If not, set up camp without us and get across the lake first thing tomorrow."

I glanced at Elissa to check her reaction. She nodded in agreement. "See you tonight, everyone."

"May the Maker watch over you," Leliana murmured, seemed only slightly put out at not having to walk into a building full of mages. Morrigan looked a little irritated but she knew that as an apostate, going into the Tower when trouble was afoot was a very bad idea. Sten was unmoved and just nodded.

I bowed my head slightly.

"May He watch over us all."

The boat was small and creaky, but it held the weight of us, including heavy armour and packs, really quite well. The Templar sat at the front, rowing silently as Fang barked incessantly in his ear (I could have hugged the hound if he didn't stink so much), wagging his stumpy tail and licking up as much of the lake as he could. Elissa and I were getting a little of the spray against our faces where we sat side by side, but it was nice and cooling when you were wrapped up in metal during the middle of summer.

"Making him soil his draws earlier was appreciated." Elissa murmured as she gestured to the man trying valiantly to row without looking like he was scared of Fang to the point of needing new underclothes.

I didn't know what to say to that.

"Well, he was being..." I gestured around vaguely with my free hand.

"Quite," she said wryly.

"Have you had to deal with that often?" I asked curiously.

She considered it.

"Not in that way. Most of my suitors were more…" She paused again, rubbing her chin like she did sometimes when thinking hard. "More circumspect. They followed the 'rules', so to speak."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

She hummed a little. "No man would ever have walked up to a Teyrn's daughter and propositioned her so bluntly. They asked for my favour before a tourney, brought me gifts, emphasised how much they wished to meet me again… lingered instead of left."

I raised my eyebrows. "Sounds like they didn't want to be rejected."

A corner of Elissa's mouth quirked up into a little smirk. "That's certainly true. Nobody likes to take that risk. But it's also considered polite to not have to force a rejection. In that way, things are always presented so that they _could_ be denied as expressing interest. Even if, of course, everyone knows _exactly_ what they mean. Such are the 'rules'." Elissa explained, rotating her hand in an airy gesture of contempt.

"You sound like you hated the rules."

"Oh, I did. It's very difficult to take measure of a person when all they are doing is what they have been told to do."

"That is… very true, actually."

She sent me a look at my tone of surprise and I held up my hands in surrender.

"So was there anyone you actually liked?"

She leant back as she thought about this one, shoulder nudging mine as she settled herself, interlocked fingers resting on her stomach as she gazed skywards.

"He wasn't a suitor, per se. He was a friend of mine. We sparred together. Under usual circumstances, I would never have been permitted to marry him. As it was, my parents had been getting desperate and would have likely allowed it, had I asked."

"Did you love him?" It slipped out before I'd even thought about it, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to hear the answer.

"No," she said, turning her head towards me, eyes bright with surprise. "No, Maker, it wasn't that serious. I simply knew him well and liked him as a person."

I frowned. "And you would have been happy with that?" I asked, a tad disturbed. That was all it took to be top of Elissa's list?

Elissa examined me. I tried not to heat under her frank gaze.

"When your name, your status, your family are what take precedence above _all else_ in arranging a match, everything else is simply irrelevant. It is difficult enough to arrange political matches both sides are satisfied by. So, yes, I would have been happy with a man that was good and kind, not only to me and not only when he wanted to make an impression, but always. I would have been happy with someone I _knew_ would treat me fairly and whose company I enjoyed."

 _Would have been?_ My mind whispered. _What about now?_ But I didn't dare ask.

"I see," I said. "I can understand that. It sounds like you didn't feel you knew many people well at all…" I waited until she shook in her head in agreement with my statement to continue. "That seems lonely."

"I… I had my family," she said, ever so softly, eyes downcast.

"And Dal," I reminded her hastily, looking at where the hound in question had stopped barking and was instead letting the breeze help his slobber get all over the place, mostly Carroll's hair.

"And Dal," Elissa said, lips pursed as she resisted a smile.

I didn't really let myself think too hard as I took her hand to tug her towards me. She looked at me with a question in her eyes until I put my arm around her shoulders and let her lean her weight on me, because I didn't know how to say _I'm here now_ without the words getting tied up in my throat.

I could feel her hair brushing against my jaw and I rested my head against hers so I could bury my nose in it. It smelled really nice. Did Leliana have a secret supply of hair products they shared? How could her hair be so soft?

When we disembarked, I stretched my cramped legs a little before we entered. A quick glance didn't reveal the face of anyone I knew and felt relieved, despite the tense and worried visages. I nudged Elissa and gestured towards the Knight-Commander.

"See the bottom of the tunic?"

Elissa stifled an amused snort somewhat successfully as we made our way over to him.

oOo


End file.
